IN DEDICATION TO MY PARENTS, HELMA AND GEORGE BRITTON. IF ANY THING WRITTEN ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES SURPRISES, AMUSES OR ANGERS YOU, BLAME THEM. TWO MORE WONDERFUL PARENTS COULD NOT BE IMAGINED. THEY MIGHT EVEN HAVE THOUGHT AS MUCH OF ME AS I OF THEM. AT ANY RATE, THEIR INFLUENCE WILL SHOW UP IN THE WORDS AHEAD.

I am going to try and write a story of George and Helma Britton and their family. A story of their trip to South Dakota, to the homestead that was to be home for many years. I will try to relate some of the hardships and pleasures, happiness and sorrows of the Britton family as they grew up with the country.

I was only four years old at the time and I am sure that some of the things that I will write about will be from memory. I am also sure that many of the things that I will mention are from the stories as they were told to me; an effort will be made to stick to the truth as much as possible. I will however reserve the right to elaborate and perhaps embellish some of the happenings as I saw them.

Everything that we owned, household goods, some farming equipment, tools and a crate of chickens were loaded on a wagon with a triple box. In other words a box three feet wide by four and a half feet high and twelve feet long. The wagon, the three horses, Tige, Nancy and Barney was all loaded on what was called an immigrant car at Brainerd, Minnesota. We rode in a passenger coach just ahead of the immigrant car. I well remember the dark red plush seats, they were really beautiful.

I don’t remember too much of the trip to Pierre, South Dakota. The depot at St. Paul was the biggest building in the world and all of the people in the world were there. We were the most of two days from St. Paul to Pierre and arrived there at night. The next day was spent in getting the last minute items necessary for the start of the new home on the prairie, if we ever got there.

Early the next morning we were at the bank of the Missouri. Every thing was loaded on the ferry and the crossing was made without incident so in a little valley, heavily wooded, a wonderful haven for all the little wild things.

In a surprisingly short time they had the wall up and the roof on. The roof was logs covered with sod. Uncle Harve went to Pierre and brought home enough lumber to make the wood floor. It was in nineteen seven before all the work was done on the house. We were living in the house before the glass was available for the windows.

Dad was able to get a few acres of sod turned over and some corn planted in the time for it to mature. There was no fence at this time and about when the corn was ready to harvest some cowboys who were disgusted with so many soddies coming, let a bunch of Luger La’Brecques cattle in and they destroyed most of the corn. Mr. La’Brecque was a pretty nice old man. He had been in the Dakotas before the Indians came. He paid Dad for the damage, and Dad bought a sow from the Taddegans.

The Taddegans were one of the first settlers in our part of the county. The two brothers came up from Texas with a trail herd and stayed. They were both blacksmiths and today they would be called mechanics. They owned and operated the only flour mill in the country. It was horse powered. More about the flour mill later.

Dad dug a barn in the side of the hill close to the home. The slope was to the south so the sun could help keep the stock warm. The back wall was of log construction and the outer walls were a kind of crib about two feet wide filled with hay. The roof was a layer of poles covered with about two feet of hay. The hay by the way was cut with a scythe. The barn was warm and a snug place for the horses and the old brindle cow, old Grandma. She had a calf late in the fall and the Britton cow herd was on the way up.

The winter of 1907 was delayed by surprisingly good weather and we were able to get a lot of things done. Nash was adding to the store building at Marietta and Dad was able to get time to do some work on that and was able to earn enough to get all the groceries needed to last till spring. Nash had really good stock for a frontier store: groceries, clothing and some hardware.

After finishing the store building, Nash started building on a barn which was to be a landmark for many years. Nash was a good trader and dealt with the Indians and some whites for cedar poles. The poles were set on end like a stockade and chinked between the poles with split cedar saplings. The original barn was about forty by one hundred feet, and about twenty feet high at the ridge pole.

The Marietta school house was built in the fall of 1907 in time for me to start to school. Our teacher was a man, Fred Stone. He had fifty five students and twelve grades. I had a really good year. I learned a lot of words that I was not allowed to use besides a lot of really good swear words which were more or less knocked out of me from then until now.

Uncle Albert had been back to Minnesota and came back out before Christmas. He and Dad took the tent and went up to Indian Spring draw to get out cedar logs for Albert’s dugout. The dugout was at the head of a little draw about a half mile from our house. I went with them one weekend and we had not much more than got there when one of those Dakota storms hit us. We stayed in the tent all one day. During the storm, Barney, the youngest got into the grocery cache and ate up a half a sack of flour. He also had chewed on a can of sardines till he had it about ruined. He was a pest. I think he knew it and was glad.

After the storm we loaded the logs that were ready and went home to see how mother and the girls had made out in the storm. As everyone suspected, she had taken care of everything. The hay was stacked just over the barn on the side hill that the barn was dug into. She just poked the hay down through the holes over the mangers then covered the holes up again. She carried water and feed to the pig.

In just a few days Christmas came. Mother and we kids made decorations for a tree. Dad and all of us kids went over to the cedar draw and got a tree, and wet. Mother had made dolls for the girls and I got a pair of spurs from M.W. Savage and Co. That was some pair of spurs. They even had little jinglers on the shank. I had many pairs of spurs after that but that first surely was the finest and the most welcome. I am sure that we enjoyed the day. We had Aunt Etta and her son Homer for dinner and Uncle Albert. Grandad Hagelin had gone back to Minnesota, for the winter at least.

Some time after Christmas I traded Aunt Ina for a real nice pony. The deal fell through because Uncle Harve objected and my folks sided in with him. Anyway the folks could see that a horse was needed for my transportation and before spring came, they bought me Billy. He was a real pretty sorrell. He was the first and one of the best horse I ever owned. He had one bad habit, he shied. He could just farther sideways than more horses could straight ahead. I remember one time I had a pair of carpet slippers, no doubt they were eight or nine sizes to big. Anyway, one of them slid off and Billy unleaded me right on top of it. Very thoughtful, at least I did not have to go back after it. He was smart and had been well trained as a cow horse. To cut a cow out of a herd, all you had to do was pick her out and start her. From then on all you had to do was hang on. He was an important part of our lives till he died many years later.

We finally got through the winter and when spring came the folks said that we had to build an addition on the house as there was another Britton kid on the way. It was decided that Uncle Albert was to go to Cotton Wood for the required lumber and I was allowed to go along. We got to town early in the day and got the lumber loaded on the wagon. Early the next morning we started to home. We got about half way home and had to stop for the night. The Henderson’s had two boys about my age and we had a game of baseball. I turned out to be a poor ball player. As the years passed by I got to play a lot more baseball without getting a lot better at the game. The next morning we started for home. Uncle Albert had bought a dozen bananas. I proceeded to eat most of them and really was sick. The results: I healed up all right but did not care of bananas for a long, long time.

As soon as we got home the work started on the addition. The addition was to just double our living space. We were not a lot too soon as Margaret was born June 16^th. As soon as she was big enough to be out Mother gussied the older ones up and we all went over to Marietta to show them off. My sisters were as cute as bugs. Mother had a Singer sewing machine. She made all her own patterns and she could make the little ones look like dolls. I sure like to show them off. Francis was a real smiler and smiled her way into everyone’s heart. Julie was just as cute but a lot quieter. I know that I took great pains to get them where they would be noticed. They were, and I thrived on the compliments.

Like all kids, they grew. Julie could run pretty good by this time. I heard her crying one morning. I knew it was a mad cry. I went to see what the trouble was, she was trying to pick the rattles of a very large snake. Everytime she would stoop over to pick off the rattles, she lost ground and the snake would get away from her. I called Mother and she came out and killed the snake.

A great deal of my time was spent in running back and forth between Francis and Julie. Francis could run like a deer, and did. Julie could not keep up so I had to run back and forth to keep them both safe. From an early as I can remember I was told that I was to look after them and keep them safe from any and all harm. I spent a lot of my youth doing just that. I know that I kept them on the straight and narrow path. I am sure that I beat them out of a lot of fun and early experiences and no doubt much innocent fun. As they grew older they called me their Guardian Angel. My role was not always welcome.

Like all kids in those days we had to make our own fun. Most of it was reasonably safe. We would go down in the breaks to pick flowers and fruit when it was in season. Both of the bigger girls could ride on old Billy and mother and I would pull Margaret along in a little red wagon. Old Ted, my dog would come along to keep all of us safe. One fun instance that I got blamed for and well remember, we had a nice steep draw just south of the house. Francis and I looked the situation over and decided it would be just right to coast Julie down in the baby buggy. We put her in and carefully headed her for a nice smooth crossing. She missed the smooth place and hit a small washout. Julie went sailing over the front of the buggy. Francis and the buggy hit the washout at about the same time. We took her to the house and mother straightened me out. Mother had a real good straightening out process. A carefully selected willow switch. I know it was a good one because I was always getting straightened. I always took the punishment whenever it was due but Francis would run and hide. Mother had the patience of a saint, as saints should, and would wait till Francis came back and then she got her spanking also.

In the spring on 1908 dad bought four heifers. He had been working for both Burdick and Nash. It was my job to keep the stock out of the crops and in a place where they could get plenty feed. A very welcome job, I didn’t have to herd the girls when I was with the cows. Of course the cows took a lot of herding.

Mother and I worked good together. We made a small stoneboat, a kind of sled. We would take one horse and could haul water for the house. We also hauled wood from the brakes. We did not need a lot of wood, just enough to cook the meals. It was a good thing we didn’t need much because we always had the three girls along. With them on the sled there was not much room for wood.

My mother was not only beautiful, she was very athletic. She could run and out-jump all of we kids and some of the men. She was a crack shot with the old 97 Winchester. I have seen her take two or more grouse out of a cover when they rose more than once. I remember one time when she was undecided whether to shoot or not. Mother called me early one morning. I jumped out of bed and ran to her. She had the 30-30 in her hands and was looking out of the north window. There was three big grey wolves down by the little dam. She finally shot at them and they ran over the hill to the east. We never did have wolves close to the house again as far as we knew.

This year Dad was able to get an old McCormack mower and a rake. This made haying a lot easier and we had plenty of feed for the stock. Dad built a dam on the draw north of the house. He let me drive the team on the Fresno part of the time. I was very impressed with my importance. We had it all done except for the spillway when we got one of those hard rains that could come at any time. A goose drownder. Dad got the shovels and he and Mother started on a spillway. I tried to help but don’t suppose they would have paid a lot for my efforts. Anyway, they saved the dam and it held about nine feet of water. This guaranteed water for the house and also for the stock. By the way I am told that this was the first dam of any size built in Haakon County.

Dad broke up more sod each year and by now we could usually raise enough corn and oats for the stock. Besides the garden stuff for us. We cut the corn stocks by hand and by the side of a contraption called a corn horse, shocked the corn. The corn horse was a pole with two legs about four feet long. The pole had a rod through it. We piled the corn around the rod, leaning the stocks against the pole. All of us could help some here. Even little Julie. Dad made a big sled and we hauled the corn stocks to the barn. The corn was still on the stalks so we had to husk it out of the pile as we used it.

The summer passed and the fall days with the beautiful sunrises, the rather lazy, hazy days with the most wonderful sunsets that lengthened into a twilight that lasted many times till the Northern Lights would light up the sky with the lances of color at times reaching to almost overhead. The nights would get almost cold and then the days would be summer again.

On one of these fall mornings, Mother had breakfast ready and as usual I was the first one to be ready for the pancakes. I asked for the syrup, there was none. Mother usually made a white sugar syrup which while hot would be quite thin, that was the way we liked it. Mother said, "I had a pan full right here on the stove, some one must have taken it…fess up!" Teeny Grandpa felt of his beard. He rubbed his hand back and forth across his snowy white beard and said with his Swedish broque, "By Yesus I bat you that is what makes my whiskers so Christly sticky." Generally we had plenty of hot water in the water reservoir on the back of the stove. Grandpa had seen the pan with the syrup and had washed his face in it.

Well, no harm done. Grandpa rewashed his face. Mother made more syrup and we were in business. Grandpa always had snowy white whiskers but I kinda think using the syrup as a shampoo really added a glow to his beard. Grandpa was a great little guy. We kids loved him. He had a set of standards that was quite high. One of the things that he objected to was foreigners like himself who came to this country and wanted to retain their old country ways and really not become Americans. One time he remarked, "I get damn mad at fellows that don’t learn English, like Swan Swanson. He bane here fifteen year and can’t even say yug yet."

Teeny Grandpa was a wonderful workman. He cut cedar poles and made Dad a corn crib. As you know the poles are a lot bigger at the bottom than at the top. Grandpa hewed them to about an inch and a quarter thick. They were about three inches wide at the bottom and would be half that at the top. Each one as smooth as a sawed board. The upright studs were also hewed out of cedar about three inches square. When finished it was a work of art. All of the hewing was done with a broad axe. The blade was seven or eight inches in length and width. I have always been sorry that I did not take at least some of the slats when we left the place.

By this time I was big enough to go around the place by myself. Our home was on Haxby draw, a tributary of Bridger creek. I rode Billy and we really explored the place. I knew where all the birds had their nests. Where the grouse drummed, and where they roosted, and where they fed, and what they ate. We had three coyote dens on the place, one of them just down the draw from the house about a quarter of a mile. Mother and I came by the den one evening and the little pups were outside playing just like any other little pups. We finally went up the den. The next time I went by that way the old mother coyote had moved her pups.

Dad bought or traded for a couple of claims from soddies that were moving away. I was told that the two claims cost only three hundred dollars. A lot of money in those days. They had belonged to Albert Walsh and Charlie Supplee. It was time to fence some of the place. Dad cut ash poles and we loaded them in the wagon. I held the posts and Dad drove them with a sixteen lb. maul. Dad was tireless and drove people as well as posts. More than once we built a mile of fence in a day. When the entire place was fenced there was over seventeen miles of fence.

Another winter was headed our way. Dad extended the barn to take care of the additional stock. He made a special place for mother’s chickens. The chicken’s part had windows, not glass but the sun could shine through, it was called ising glass. The old hens seemed to like it, at least they laid plenty of eggs for us.

This year Francis started to school. We walked. The school was at Marietta. There were a few times during the winter when the weather was real bad that Dad came and picked us up. Dad taught Francis and I to play cribbage. That and the reading passed the time away rapidly. We both could read very well, Francis before she started to school. We read everything we could get our hands on. Zane Gray was a favorite. We also had our studies to get. I was fortunate or maybe unfortunate, I didn’t have to study much to get a good grade. Francis did. The results, Francis never forgot, I did. I believe that she could have recited her lessons any time as long as she lived. I could remember studying it at one time or another, but that was about the extent of it.

Nineteen hundred and nine started out pretty good. Both cows had calves. Old Grandma and her daughter Dolly. They both had bull calves and we needed heifers. The sow had pigs, a real nice litter. Believe it or not, little pigs are about as cute as any babies can be. We kids spent a lot of time watching them play. When spring came, Dad got a couple of colts to break for the use of them and went to breaking up sod as fast as he could. He had a walking plow and only turned over one furrow at a time. He planted twenty acres of alfalfa. He sowed the seed with a little seeder that he carried on his shoulder. The seeder had a crank that turned a kind of propeller that scattered the seed. The seed was Russian Cossack. The man who sold us the seed said that its roots would penetrate twenty-five feet of rock and clinch itself on the bottom. We did not have any rock to plant it on but it did pretty good on the gumbo. The alfalfa came and was a good crop as long as we were on the place.

This was the year I got my first gun. A twenty-two single shot. I got three hundred shells with the gun. I was to get more shells if I could bring home thirty or more of some kind of game. I also had to clean any game I brought home. Targets other than eatable game took too many of my shells to get me in line for another quota of shells. I took Mother’s twelve gauge shotgun and snuck up on a waterhole covered with snipes. I shot and when I picked up my game I had over thirty. I went home and claimed by supply of shells. Dad looked at the snipe and said, "Nice work, son, clean them." I did and never shot snipe again.

Nance’s colt was three years old. A long-legged, Roman nosed black. A pet and a pest. We named him Nobs, he always turned up when you least expected like the Jack in cribbage. I decided to break him to ride. Really no trouble, he was tame and just as stubborn as his Roman nose suggested. I could lead him away from home and then I could ride him back. When I first started working with him he went just about where he pleased. My nose may not have been as arched as Nob’s but I was stubborn enough to stay with him and finally got him to act as a horse should. Dad took him over and he turned out pretty good. This was the first of many horses that I broke in later years.

There was still trouble with the rancher’s cattle and the farmer’s crops. Dad was appointed deputy sheriff; a part of his job was to get the rancher’s cattle into the pound after they had damaged crops. After the cattle were impounded, the rancher was notified. If not settlement was reached, enough meat was butchered to take care of the damage claim. I went with dad to the pound once. The cattle were in the corral and no settlement had been made. Dad shot one of the steers and it was butchered to pay the damage claim. The cowboys sat on the corral fence and watched the proceedings. Dad told me years later that he had a cold spot between his shoulders when he half expected to collect a bullet from one of the forty-fives all the cowboys wore.

Francis continued to go to school at Marietta. Our teacher was Kate Greenwood, she was lovely and I fell in love with her as I did with all the women teachers I ever had. I was a real good little kid. The other kids were always getting me into trouble. As I look back on it, I may have instigated some of it, unlikely but possible. Francis was a doll and smiled her way into everyone’s heart. She learned very young that it was easier to get people to do things for her than it was to do it for herself. She could convince anyone that it was a privilege to do good things for her. We all did for her all her life and loved her for the opportunity to serve her.

Dad had time or took time out from working for Nash and other people to add some to the farmland. This year we planted some wheat and had enough to grind for flour and have enough for mother to give her chickens a change of feed. We took the grain to another Britton family. Asa Britton, his wife and Addie. They lived on the old Taddegan place. They may have been and probably were relatives of us but we never found out for sure. Anyway, we started to grind the wheat. It was my job to keep the horse going around on the old horse powered mill. The flour was a little coarse but it was whole wheat. The Phillip flour mill was operating by this time, and we got most of our flour from there. The flour was called King Phillip Flour and was not a lot better than that we ground for ourselves.

Everyone used sour dough yeast and it was not uncommon for someone to come calling because they had neglected to keep the required amount of yeast for working. In that case they would borrow and start over. Once in awhile the yeast would get a little sour if not handled just right. Sure would make good biscuits and pancakes though.

The year of 1909 was flawed by Mother breaking a leg. We had some hay bunched around the lake bed east of the house. We were ready to haul it home, the whole family went along just for the ride I guess. Dad pitched the hay up and I straightened it out on the rack. As we were on the way home, Dad was letting me drive the team, I came close to the head of a little draw. The wagon tipped over. All of us slid with the hay and all were unhurt but mother. She was holding baby Margaret and I supposed trying to protect the baby, landed wrong and broke her leg. We got mother home and I quit bawling long enough to go and get Dr. Whaley. I got the doctor’s team and hitched them to her buggy. I know that it did not take a long time but to me it seemed like many hours. When doctor got there she looked at mother’s leg and said it was a nice clean break. I knew better, there could be no nice clean break on my mother.

When it came time to make supper, Dad said we would have rice and prunes. It swelled up pretty good, instead of one kettle, we started with, we had two. It sure was good. The first time. Not as good on the second day and just naturally got worse as the days passed. Dad was not a bad cook generally, he had one rule he followed: when it is smoking, it is cooking and when it is black it is done.

Mother was young and healthy and healed up pretty fast. It seemed slow to me though. I had to do most of her work and she sure had a hell of a lot to do. Mother told me how to wash. We did have a washing machine. It was made of wood staves like a barrel. The agitator looked like a three legged milk stool, it was activated by a horizontal bar gear and another gear that drove the agitator. The machine was powered by boy power. The power was erratic, it could be speeded up by scolding or coaxing but generally it would soon ebb back to the regular boy power speed. All the white clothes had to be boiled in a copper boiler on top of the stove. It was quite a job for a little guy to lift the wet clothes out of the boiler. We twisted the clothes on a clothes stick and out they came.

I suffered a lot of broken bones from that time on. I am sure though I never had one that hurt as much as mother’s did. You see if I just hadn’t tipped over.

1910 started out as years usually did, about January 1^st. We did not have a lot of snow. The spring run-off partially filled the dams. From the time that we arrived in South Dakota, the snow melt off and the rains had been sufficient to give us good crops and plenty water in the dams. This year was to prove different.

Grandma Britton came out from Minnesota for a visit and to buy some cows that we were to run on shares. We were to take care of the cows for so many years and a share of the calves was to be ours. I think that she bought eight head. They all had calves and even if the grass was not as good as usual they did all right. That fall, Sam Strayer, a cattle buyer, came through and we sold him the steer calves, at his price. I am sure that he wasn’t a loser on the deal. In those days there was no sale barns and no way to know what the price should be except for Commission Companies quotations. We usually got the prices after we had sold.

Our Grandma Britton was a lovely person. One of my earliest memories is of Cousin Isabel and riding on her back as she scrubbed the floors on her hands and knees. This would be after she had given us our breakfast. We were about two years old at the time. She had to go back to Minnesota after too short a visit. We hated to see her go. We had no idea that we would be in Brainerd later that year.

By that time I had become quite proficient with little twenty-two. Mother would tell me to get so many grouse or cottontails and usually I could get the job done. I knew where the grouse and rabbits could be found. I learned how to get up real close to them and could generally get all that we needed for a meal. Dad would let me shoot the shotgun when we were together. One day we were fixing fence and came to a pond with a pair of Mallards on it. Dad told me to kill the drake. I waited till they were right together and got them both. Then came my first lesson on game conservation. I got a real hard scolding for killing the hen. I have not forgotten.

This year Mother and I broke up a couple of acres of sod across the creek south of where the new house was to be built in years to come. I drove the team and mother held the plow. After we got it plowed I put the team on the disc and got the field ready to plant. We planted sweet corn, potatoes and the regular garden stuff. The big garden was on low land and did not require the rain that upland ground did. We got some garden stuff and the corn did real well, we had planted watermelons, Kleckly Sweets. A long black melon, some of them weighted as much as thirty pounds. The corn we picked early and Mother canned and dried all she could. It turned out to be a smart thing to do. Uncle Albert dug the potatoes that fall and they were small and far between.

The drouth strengthened as the summer passed. The grass was completely cured in early fall. Dad was looking ahead and anticipated the coming drouth of the next year. We cut and stacked every bit of grass and weeds that could be found for feed. Dad forked them on the rack and I being the smallest had to arrange them on the rack and tramp them down so that we could at least get part of a load. The Russian thistles grew in sprite of the rain or rather lack of it. They were as sharp as needles and all of the stickers were looking for a pace to dig into. I was the place. Besides making feed for the cattle, the thistles were also good for table greens when they were the right size. I can truthfully say that most people learned to cook them.

A lot of the native grasses, especially the buffalo and gramma grass would make some growth even in dry years, matured early and was a rich feed. It is a known fact that the cattle on hard grass will fatten up till they look like they had been fed grain. We had enough pasture for all the cows but not enough feed for the winter so the folks decided to sell off all the steers and dry stuff. Dad and I cut the stuff to ship out and put them in a small pasture east of the barn. Vaughn’s, Hoag’s and LaBreque made up enough cattle to make a shipment to Sioux City.

I was sent up to LaBreque’s to help him cut his herd and move them down to our place. He was a wonderful cattleman. He could ease a steer out of the herd and they never knew they had been cut out. I would hold them out of the main herd. After we got them cut out we started for home. Mr. LaBreque went with me for a way and then let me move them by myself. I sure was proud of myself. I got them home all right and throwed them in with our stuff. The old man was pleased with the way I handled the stock and from that time on I was his right hand man when it was time to ship. I learned a lot about handling cattle from him.

We just had part of a carload and filled up the rest with some of Vaughn’s cattle. Dad went with the cattle to Sioux City. He could ride the caboose free when shipping. There was demand for cattle, especially as we were early, Dad got a good price for the cattle. Dad bought back a dress for each of the girls and Mother. Believe it or it, they all fit with little or no alteration. He also brought me a new suit, knee pants. God how I hated those knee pants. In my mind I was a grown up as anyone.

Right after we got home from taking the cattle to Philip, Fred Volmer and another man came through with a bunch of longhorn steers. Fred told me the man with him was named Thompson. He can stand a few words. He was a little short man, so homely it hurt. The Indians called him Tia Suta which means hard face. I met them a couple of miles south of home and helped them through the place and got them to water. These cattle were regular old longhorns and from three to five years old. They could outrun a poor horse and make a good get right out and step.

I know that this was the last of the longhorns that had so much to do with making South Dakota history. They were wild as deer and real bunch quitters. There still were a few after the bunch went through our place. They were a menace to fences and crops. The farmers finally got the last few killed off.

As I sit here trying to remember, I realized that as this was the end of the longhorn story it was also the last time that I saw Fred Volmer. I never heard of him again. Fred had made several drives from Texas and finally settled down on the Diamond A ranch. The ranch belongs to a Mr. Mossman. The people called him Captain, I believe. At any rate the drive of the longhorns through our place really was the last of an important era in the history of the West.

Uncle Harve and Aunt Ina lived in a shack about a quarter of a mile south of Aunt Anna’s. It was right on our way to school and we generally stopped there at least once a day. She generally had cookies or some other goodies and we always had room. She also had a pet pig, Suzie, she had the run of the house like a dog. In fact I think she thought she was a dog. We had stopped there one day and a stray dog came along and started to fight with our dog, Teddy. They were going right at it and Suzie ran and bit the stray where it seemed to do a lot of good. She bit him just as far west as a dog can be bit.

One day Francis and I were coming home from school, when we got in sight of Aunt Ina’s house we saw something fly out the door. Auntie had got mad at something or someone and to get even with someone or something, she threw out everything she could lift. By the time we got there, she was carrying things back in. We helped her finish the job in anticipation of the goodies which we of course earned. Aunt Ina was the Aunt I traded for the pony. They moved back to Minnesota that year.

My dog Teddy was over a year old by this time and was getting smarter each day. If mother needed a chicken to cook, Ted would catch and bring it to her. There was a time or two that he bought one when he was not asked. He could hold the biggest pig you ever saw by the ear. If Dad or I roped a critter and throwed it, Ted would grab it by the throat or the back of the neck and hold on till we were ready for it to get up. He was death on rattle snakes and killed many of them. I know that he saved the little ones from being bitten many times.

Ted did not come one morning when I got up, I knew something was wrong. I went looking for him and finally found him buried in the mud down in the creek. I left him there and he came home in a couple of days. His dog wisdom told him that the snake bite poison had to come out and the mud would do the job. He was bitten three times that I knew of and each time he would head for the creek to bury himself in the mud. A dog and a boy make a good team, when we hunted he would retrieve any kind of game and when we were just messing around he was good a messer as any other boy could have been.

As the summer passed, the drouth strengthened. The dams and water holes dried up and it became necessary for us to dig wells to water the cattle. Digging a well in those days was a lot different than in later years. The wells were dug by hand. Dad or Leon could throw the dirt out of the hole for at least ten feet and then it had to be taken out with a windlass and a big bucket. The windlass was a contraption made out of a round log with a crank on one end. A rope was wound around the long and tied to the bucket, the bucket would be lowered, filled up and emptied after being wound up. A slow way to serve the Lord but it worked. Some wells would water a very few cows ad some of them would take care of several. Ordinarily a couple of gallons of water would satisfy the cow. When it had to be pulled up with rope or pumped, two gallons would just barely prime them.

The folks had a hunch that trouble might be brewing. They cut and stacked anything that looked like it might be eaten by a hungry cow. Sure paid off. The next year was the driest year South Dakota had witnessed. Very little snow that winter and the cattle grazed all winter long. We kids were glad for the bare ground, we did not have to wear our overshoes. That did not let us off as far as the fleece-lined underwear was concerned. We all hated the underwear, especially the girls. When they put on their stockings, there were huge lumps that could not be smoothed out. No such thing as slacks in those days to cover up the unmentionables. The winter passed rather uneventfully. Nothing bad and nothing to brag about either.

1911. No snow, no rain and many grasshoppers. Spring came, and we like many, planted the seed for the crops, it was a mistake. The soil was so dry none or little of anything came up. Some of the corn planted that spring came up the next year. Not enough moisture to either germinate or spoil the seed. I can’t vouch for this personally but I heard it often enough to make it believable.

Dad had a little fence that needed building. Really hard work. Dad would drive a crowbar into the ground as far as it would go and fill the hole up with water. After about three drinks the soil would soften enough to allow a post to be driven. Dad was big and strong. He used a sixteen pound maul. He stood in the back of the wagon and I held the post. When the post hit real hard ground my hands would get a real good stinging. I can’t remember ever Dad admitting being tired. I was though.

The summer slowly passed. The incentive to do things was low. I know we did what had to be done with the stock and did some work on the sheds. I can see now that it was a period of frustration. Kids don’t frustrate too well and I believe that we young ones did alright. We put up some feed. It took a lot of mowing and raking but little hauling and stacking. It was in the first part of August when we took the cattle to town and on dad’s return, the folks started making preparations to go back to Minnesota. Our grandma Britton needed help and there was really nothing that we had to stay in Dakota for as Uncle Albert was going to be there. We arrived in Brainerd in time for we kids to start school.

The school was a mile and a half from home and we usually enjoyed the walk. One evening as we were going home we hard something crying in a fence corner. We investigated and found a baby bear. We were about to try to take him home when a neighbor came along. He changed our minds about adopting the baby bear. In fact he darn near scared us to death when he told us what the old mama bear would do to us if she caught us.

Shortly after we got to grandma’s house, Roy Larsen came home. Roy was an orphan that had been raised along with their nine. Anyway with Uncle Leon and Roy both there, there was no need for dad to stay. He went up near Duluth to work for a logging company. When he got, there, their hunter had quit so Dad got the job of supplying the meat for the camp. Dad was a near perfect shot and had a knowledge of the woods and hunting. He had no problem keeping the camp supplied and had time to work as a lumber jack a lot of the time. Made his pay a lot better.

I had a lot of trouble in school. All my short life I had been told to be kind. Especially to take care of the girls. To always be gentle and careful they did not get hurt in any way. I was the smallest kid in school, and new. I got a licking nearly every day. I wouldn’t fight and the bigger boys finally tired of punching me out and left me alone. I did learn how to take a licking but I never learned how to lie it. Mother finally tired of patching the skinned places and had the uncles start to teach me a little bit of how to take care of myself. I could run like the devil, that helped.

The snow started to come early and never quit entirely. No wind and the snow might be as high as a foot on top of a rail fence. The only transportation was horses and oxen, pulling sleds. It was thirty or more below zero for three weeks in a row. We kids walked to school and back unless someone would come along and give us a ride in a sled. We all had warm clothes but any part that stuck out froze. We had heavy scarfs for the girls and I would put them over their faces and lead them along. My face was froze more often than not however.

Dad made it home a few days before Christmas. We hitched a team to a bob-sled and all went to the woods. Mother, Dad and all us kids. We went out in the woods to find a tree. The woods was about forty acres just north of the barn. The woods ran up to a piece of swampy land where we were able to find hazelnuts, filberts, and cranberries. Isabel was with us. A word or two, she was my cousin, four months older than I. Her mother died when she was born, an Indian woman nursed her till I was born and then my mother fed us both. I have always thought I would have been bigger if Isabel had not kept pushing me off when we were fed. At any rate, we found a beautiful tree. We set it up in what was the parlor. Most if not all of the trimmings were homemade. The tree was absolutely beautiful.

I know that all of us had presents. I got two that I remember. One was a scarf wide enough so I could wrap it over my head and the other was a pair of mittens. They were both double knitted and were really warm. Looking back I recall the pleasures that we had from that Christmas and the gifts we received. I wonder if we had any idea how much love went with each gift.

One of the highlights of the winter in Brainerd was the big old barn with all of the cows and horses in it. The calves unless they were to be kept for milk cows were sold in the fall. All the cattle kept over were housed in the barn. There was a trough in front of the cows where they were fed and watered. They never left the warmth of the barn when it was very cold. Uncle Leon took care of the cows and did all the milking. He would let us kids play in the barn. There was hay and feed in the haymow. It was an ideal place to play. I still can smell the really nice odor that come from stock in a really clean barn.

I was going to have to start to get the family back to So. Dakota. During the winter and the long nights and little to do I learned to tat, embroider and crochet. Having been informed that there was to be another Britton kid soon, I crocheted a pair of booties for whoever came along. They were blue with a red draw string around the ankle. Well on April seventh, Anna Jean was born. One of the nicest things that had happened to us for quite a while. She got the booties.

About the twentieth of April we headed back to South Dakota. When we arrived there, we moved to the old Marietta place. It was a ramshackle old building but it did have a lot of room. There was seven or eight rooms plus the old store building where Nash had his store. This room was about thirty by fifty. Had a good floor and we all got roller skates. I never fell down until I really could skate and then I took a bad fall to give me another lesson, in being too smart. The barn was a wonderful building. Nash had built wings on both sides of the original building and all made out of cedar logs. Almost undestructible. The outside measured one hundred by one hundred. The haymow could hold thirty tons of hay. The barn and the haymow was to come in handy in the years to come.

The Marietta place was a mile square, and it gave us a lot more land on which to run cattle. The first thing the folks did was to build two big dams. One was just south of the building and the biggest one northeast of the place. This one was in a deep draw and would hold fifteen feet of water. The dams and the dare of Pete Kerr’s horses and Pete Kerr’s board when he was home was most of the lease. He was a nice old Dane and nice to have around.

Dad borrowed money and bought forty head of shorthorn heifers. They were the foundation of a real good cow herd. They were bred to good hereford bulls and the cross was really good.

We got some real hard rains early in the spring and the dams filled. The one south of the house was a wonderful place to swim. It was built on a hard pan flat and was not muddy like the gumbo. Dad taught us all to swim. His method may have been a little severe but we learned to swim. Dad carried me out as far as he could wade and throwed me in after he told me to go to shore. I went down and came right up and went down and came up paddling to shore. He was easier on the girls. He carried them out about the same distance and had them dive off his shoulders toward shore. We all learned to be good swimmers.

I had continued to learn how to handle stock and especially horses. Ted Baseler, a near neighbor had quite a bunch of horses. They were a pretty good bunch of potential saddle stock. Two of the mares, Hambeltonian, were bred to a Morgan stallion and had some outstanding colts. Baseler wanted me to break some of them for him. The folks agreed and we rounded up a bunch and brought them to the place. We cut out four of them and got them into the old barn. I started to work with them, they were wild as deer but no meanness in them. I would rope one and get a hackamor on him and tie him to old Jim. Jim was a big iron grey and a real good rope horse. I then turned them loose on the big corral. If the colt started raising the devil, old Jim would soon put him in the proper place.

After I got them well broke to lead, I put them in a bronc stall. This was a stall, real narrow, which allowed me to work on the colt from either side. Saddled them up in the stall and then I would take them out to the big corral, tie another colt to the saddle and turn them loose. The results were usually pretty good. One would learn more about being led and the other would get used to the saddle. The colts and I both learned. I sure had them tangled up sometimes.

Dad was working on the Carlin Bridge Road and when he got home on the weekend, he snubbed two of them for me with old Jim, and I rode the colts. We got two of them ridden several times that week-end. As I had them quite tame and used to me, I continued to ride them everyday and work them out.

One of the colds I worked was a pretty little grey mare. She had a nice disposition and old Baseler decided to keep her for himself. The girls named her Cute. It stuck, but was no appropriate very long. Baseler was a poor feeder and Cute got a lot of post hay. She was faithful and served Baseler for many years.

I broke out two more of the colts we brought in and Ted sold them. The fourth one was a bad one. The best lines of any of them. He would bite and kick and was just plain mean. I worked with him most of the summer and got him so that I could lead him around in the big corral. I could saddle him in the bronc stall. I knew that I was not rider enough to ride him. One morning I was working with him and Mother was watching. She said, "Son, you just as well get that colt broke or turn him loose." Well, the upshot of the situation was that Mother got on old Jim, snubbed the colt up short and I got on him. The colt raised hell but Mother kept him snubbed short enough for control.

We rode that way for a time and Mother began giving him more rope. If he started raising the dickens, I would pull up on the hackamor rope. It had choker balls on it that fit right into his nostrils and would shut off his wind. He was smart enough to figure things out and I rode him home without a snub. I rode him three or four times that day. The next morning, I saddled him up took him out in the corral and got on him. He proceeded to throw me off. I got on him again and we went at it again. This happened three times that day and the colt gave up. I rode him a round the corral for a couple of hours. Francis named him Snicker because she said he laughed at me everytime he threw me off. At any rate, he sure did teach me a lot of things that were valuable to me in later years. Snicker turned to go be real nice and all the girls rode him. I picked out another iron grey gelding, a brother to Snicker, for my pay. He was a two year old. We named him Closer because he was always closer to the far end of the pasture than home.

The folks got a piano that year and the girls began taking lessons from Mrs. Teeple. The kids would ride over to Teeple’s for their lessons. Francis never did get to be an outstanding horse woman but Julie took to it like a cat to cream.

This was the year after the bad drouth and we were eating canned goods and meat. I am not inferring that we were short of food, but we had no potatoes. We were told that John Wedeman had potatoes and I was sent to get some. I used good judgement and got there in time for dinner. Mrs. Wedeman had potatoes. I got acquainted with the Wedeman kids, Howard and Cecil. Cecil was a skinny little thing and when I first saw her, she was sitting in a big chair with her legs sticking out. I was sure she was all legs. She had beautiful hair, auburn, braided and the braids hanging down past her shoulders. She also had freckles, many of them. I know that I was not too impressed. Looking back I know that at that time girls were not the most important thing in my life. That changed as the years went by. At any rate I got home with the potatoes.

1913. We were going to Marietta school and Mrs. Teeple was the teacher. She was a very good teacher and a lovely person. Entertainment was home made and nearly everyone entered into it. Most everyone enjoyed getting into the act. As the store was no longer in the old store building, we had plenty of room for dances and we had them quite often. There were many people in the community that had musical ability and were always available. Everyone came. The dances started early and ended early. Early in the evening start and quit early in the morning. The hall had benches around the side and the little ones were put to sleep either on or under them.

There was always a lunch at midnight. I danced with most of the women. One of my favorites was Hazel Wedeman, she was a tall slim girl, really good looking. Also gracious, she danced with me quite often. Her sister Cecil came some of the time. I never danced with her, I thought she was snooty, I still am not sure but I was right. It is possible that she was just shy. At any rate she never danced with me until I got a suit with long pants. The first time I wore my new suit with long pants to a dance she was there danced with me several times. This I am sure proved something but I am not exactly sure just what. Both of the Wedeman girls were excellent dancers, nearly as good as their mother.

We also had contatas. The older people put on the contatas. We kids had the school plays. I remember a play in which I had the lead as an old hillbilly farmer. I had a wonderful beard make of a piece of frasseled out rope. In one act I was to stick my head out between the curtains and tell a joke. I opened the curtains and started to tell the joke. Some kid ran up and pulled off my beautiful beard. The play was supposed to be a comedy. The beard removal received the most applause.

We got more cattle each year and of course had to have more grazing for them. There was an area north of our place that the soddies had all moved out of. No one had really taken possession. Several of us ran our cattle on this area. Two of us did most of the riding. Bill Hanrahan and I. Bill was in his seventies and I was eleven. You see, we were a couple of kids together. With a lot of responsibility.

We had to ride the bog holes each morning to see that no cattle were stuck in the mud. The rest of the time we spent keeping cattle out of the crops on the perimeter of the so called open range. We had a lot of time for things that were interesting to do. We had the use of a claim shack where we made our noon meal. We could always get a cotton tail or a grouse so we had fresh meat most of the time and old Bill was always well mounted. Usually one or the other of us would bring along a colt that needed working. I would take the rough off them and then Bill would take over. Bill weighted over two hundred and the colts would quiet down pretty quick. We got several of them worked our before the summer was over.

The coyotes were increasing in number and they were a menace to the new calves and anything that was bogged down in the mud. The upshot of this was that everyone carried a rifle. I got a new 32-30 and Bill had a 30-30. We got several coyotes and I think because of the molestation, they left the flats. There was a big prairie dog town in the center of the range and that was an incentive for the coyotes to stay around. They hunted the town a lot when the pups were little. We always had old dog Ted with us and several times we run the devil right out of the coyotes. If we could jump a coyote when we were not together, we would run him as much as we could and then move him towards the other fellow. Once Bill drove one to me and he had been run pretty hard for quite a while. My Billie horse could run like the wind and we took after the coyote. Billie caught up with him and I caught him with the first throw of my rope. That was the only one we caught but we did get a few with the rifles.

Picnics and fishing trips were quite popular especially with us kids. We made several trips to the Cheyenne this year. On one trip we kids found a nice sand bar to play on. It turned out to be quick sand. Julie could not run as fast as Francis and I and the quicksand would be pulling her down. Consequently we finally had to rescue her. Mother saw the whole thing and that ended a very pleasurable game.

A sad thing happened that day. The men were fishing with a seine and a wall of water probably caused from a cloudburst up the river caught the men by surprise. Dad was a strong swimmer and he as able to bring the seine in to shore by swimming and floating. Fred Stone, my first teacher was caught in quicksand not far from shore. They thought he was alright and were not worried about him. He finally hollered and said, "Damn it to hell if you are going to let me drown, throw me a bottle of beer!"

Charlie Suplee and dad went out and brought him in. After a head count they found one man missing. A man by the name of Bomgartner. They started searching for him and late in the afternoon an Indian came up the river and said that he had found him a couple of miles down the river where he had floated in to the bank.

This was the first dead person I had ever seen and the memory stayed with me. We took him home and he was buried in a country cemetery south of our home about three miles. I passed that way on many occasions and I always remembered the sad ending to an otherwise pleasant outing. One day I came by there and a young colt had his foot over the wire of the cemetery fence. I knew I had to get him out but I had an unpleasant feeling all of the time it took me to free him. It was not without some trepidation I can assure you.

This was a good hay year and we filled the haymow to the top with good wheat grass hay. It was quite a job. All the hay had to be moved to the back of the mow and then pitched to the roof. Anyway, we filled her up.

Winter came early but never get too bad, we had one bad storm late in the spring. We had all the cows in the barn so it was no trouble. The north lean-to on the barn had been blown full of straw when we thrashed. The old sows thought that was a good place to have pigs and I guess it was. It sure was an awful place to get the little buggers out of. I don’t believe that any of the sows knew how many pigs they had till they were half grown and came outside.

I am not positive but I believe that this was the year that Jim Bell had a sale, we all went to the sale. Dad bought some of the cows. Two of them were linebacks. A lineback is a critter with a white stripe down their back from the head to the tail. These linebacks were as wild as any domesticated animal could be. They were rustling rascals and on the coldest of nasty days they would be out scrounging for feed when the rest of the cattle were humped up somewhere out of the wind. No matter what the cross-breeding was, the lineback prevailed in all their calves as long as we had cattle.

1914 The winter gave up with one of those well remembered South Dakota storms. The wind was from the northwest and strong. The snow was wet and heavy but still drifted. It was a real blizzard. We had drifts from the top of the barn extending a hundred feet or more to the southwest. I had a hayrack in front of the barn, it was completely covered. When we were able to get it shoveled off, some of the cross stringers were broken. Dad had been clearing some bottom land for Herm Vaughn on Brigger creek and was not home when the storm hit. We got along alright. We were lucky, and had all the cows in the barn. Mother and I picked out the heavy cows and had them in the central part of the barn which was right under the haymow, and area about 30 x 100. Five little calves were born during the storm.

Mother's turkeys roosted on the ridge-pole of the barn. We bigger kids and mother tried to chase them into the barn. We did get about half of them in. The rest of them roosted on the barn and lot of them froze. Mother had a good luck with the turkeys she had left and raised a lot of them that year. She just let them run wherever they wanted to and they would come home at night and as soon as the little ones were big enough to make it, they too roosted on top of the barn.

The cattle had to be watered. We knew it would be a job to get them to the dam about a half miles from the house. There was over a foot of snow on the level and big drifts ever now and then. We put Julie on old Jim, leading the work horses behind. They made the beginning of a trail. We got the dry cows and the steers ahead as much as possible and they strung out pretty good. As the cattle walked, they packed a path about two feet wide as hard as ice. We had good luck getting them watered and back to the barn. The snow went off quickly as it was early spring. When the snow was melted, the path to the dam was still there for a few days. A path of snow six inches deep on a prairie of grass.

This proved to be a pretty good farm year. We did not farm any of the old Marietta place. It was all used as pasture. Dad continued to put more of the home place into farm land. I think that by this time we had nearly a hundred acres. We raised everything for feed for the cattle. Rye did well and was a popular crop. The yield was not too heavy but there was a lot of straw. As we thrashed everything in those days, it made huge straw stacks, wonderful refuge for the cows in the winter. This year was no exception for South Dakota. If it rained, you could grow anything, if it didn't rain, nothing would grow. Anyway, we raised a lot of corn and rye.

The Corn and Hog Club was stared, a club similar to the present Four-H clubs. I joined up. The folks helped me to buy a pure bred Duroc Sow. We paid $75.00 for her. She had six pigs. Three boars and three sows. I sold the boars in the fall for $75.00 each and kept the three sows. I started raising pigs. By using Dad's feed, I was able to make some pretty good money. Dad finally objected to the arrangement and I sold off most of the hogs and bought some cattle. The first cow I bought, I paid to much for and from then on my purchasing was more or less supervised.

Ralph Wiley, a good friend of the folks, came through with a real good bunch of white faced cows. He was to leave them at our place for a few days. He seemed to like us kids. I was helping him to get them in a small holding pasture till he could come after them. I remarked that it was a nice bunch of cows and he said, "Artie, there is one registered cow in the bunch. If you can pick her out, I will give her to you." The cows were there several days and I studied that bunch everyday. When Ralph came back, I showed which one I had picked. It was the right one and I got the cow; I might add that the gift of the cow was not for nothing. The folks had helped Ralph many times and this was more less in payment thereof.

One day late in summer, we kids were playing out in front of the old store building. The original building was a two storied affair with an outside stairway. While we were playing around, we carelessly let Anna Jean (Babe), climb up the stairs and she fell off. She lit flat on her back and was out cold. We ran for Mother, carried her in and I went for Dr. Whaley. I do know she was out for quite a long time. She finally came out of it. I also remember making a gate to keep her off the stairs after it was too late. The story of my life, either too little or too late.

By this time, the folks had made up their minds to build a house on their own place. The walls were to be of cement. The gravel had to be hauled six miles and that meant a day's work for a yard of gravel. Whenever we had time, we went after a load. Never would have had enough if the neighbors had not helped. Anyway, the pile of gravel grew. We kids and mother picked up gumbo rocks which could be put in the walls to save some cement. They had not planned to build that year but we did get a lot of material.

The house was to be built on two levels, both on the ground. Dad was home a lot that year and we got the excavation done. We also built a chicken house and a big hay yard. The chicken house was dug in the bank of the hill too. We put a row of windows on the south side and the sun could keep it pretty well heated. Dad came up with the idea of a high cable for unloading hay with a hay fork. We put up two thirty foot poles forming an "A". The cable ran over the "A" and to an anchor dug into the hill north of the yard. It was no problem to build a stack at least twenty feet high. Some of the neighbors like the idea and copied the idea with many different ideas.

Things were shaping up now so that dad was home a lot more. In other words, we could make a living off the place. Dad and I were good friends. Dad was a slave driver when there was work to do. He never admitted being tired and thought no one else should tire either. By the same token, he played the same way. When he had the time, he would help me with the colts I was working with. We got a couple of wild mares, very small and very mild. I got them broke to lead and tamed down some. They were not mean just plain damn wild.

I had them to the place where they should be ridden. Dad had a new saddle he wanted to try out. We saddled up the little bay mare and Dad got on her out in front of the barn. She started to run and ran under a buggy shed which was too low and Dad had to lean way over. When she came out on the other side, she gave a hard buck and threw Dad off. I laughed. Dad didn't see the joke. We decided to find a better place to ride. We took her out in front of the house where there was plenty of room and Dad got on her again. There was a cave north of the house and the little mare, bucking blind, were down the stairs into the cellar. Naturally Dad had to jump off. We got her out and I snubbed her and took her to a place to give Dad at least an even chance and Dad rode her. She was not a bit mean and dad gave her to Francis to ride. She would take the bit in her teeth and run off. We always kept the barn door shut when Francis was riding her because if she started to run, on the way home she would go into the barn at top speed.

That fall we got to try out Dad's hayfork on the high cable. It really worked and saved a lot of labor. Dad started on the big cattle shed in the fall and when we had spare time, we would work on it. The shed was also dug into the south slope of a hill also dug into the bank. It was built like an open square. It was big enough to hold three hundred head. We worked on it right up to Christmas, cold or not. I wore all the clothes I had and Dad worked bare handed wearing a Stetson hat. I think he got cold alright but just would not admit it.

1915 The early part of this year was quite uneventful. We played a lot of cards. There was always enough to fill at least one table. We played 500, Hearts, Norwegian Whist, Cribbage and about any kind of game anyone chose. Most of we kids learned to count on a cribbage board. Old Ted Baseler was at our place a lot. It was a real good place to eat and he was a bachelor. One night we were playing and Ted filled his pipe, an old corncob. He filled it out of loose tobacco from his pocket. He smoked a minute or two and his pipe blew up. He did this twice the same evening. Mother told Ted either to pick the shells out of his tobacco or quit smoking. We kids thought it was a really good joke especially as Ted did not even have a twenty two. I haven't the slightest idea how the shell could get into Ted's pocket.

Spring came as usual and as usual we kids wanted to get out of the school house and do other things as much as possible and do other things than study. Irene Giddings was our teacher. A real nice girl and a nice teacher. I fell in love with her too. To go along with the above, one windy day a large flock of cranes lit on a hill south of the school house. I convinced Irene that I could get the whole school right up close to the cranes. As she agreed that it might be possible, we started out. I cautioned the kids to be as quiet as they could. We sneaked up a small draw and we really got very close. When we stood up, the flock took off. The wind was very strong and from us to the birds. They had to take off into the wind and when they were airborn, they were right over us.

People were still leaving now and then. Supplees and Wards left that year and I lost two friends. We rented the Supplee place. It had a good well on it and we hauled water for the house from it. One day Dad and I and probably some of the kids were coming home with a load of water. We met a stranger. He asked how far we hauled water. Dad told him about a mile. The man asked why we did not dig a well and Dad's reply was "it is about the same distance."

Dad decided to break out some colts we had. A pair of matched sorrels, brothers, a roan mare and an iron grey mare. They were all Percheron except the iron grey mare, she was half British Coach. I broke all them to lead with Ole Jim, then I started to gentle them down. I petted them, put the harnesses on them. I had them broke before we ever hitched them up. We hitched them with well broke horses the first time and all of them but the Coach colt acted like they had worked all their lives. I mention this four up because we kept them and I sold them when we quit the ranch many years later.

We and most of the neighbors by this time had enough cattle that branding was quite a job. We generally made a day of it. The women and children all came. It was a wonderful way to get a visit with the neighbors and get a job done too. Herm and Bertha Vaughn and their two boys always came. Clarence and Leonard were their two boys. Clarence was quite musical. He could play several instruments. After the work was over, Clarence would get his sax and Francis would play the piano. Everybody joined in on the singing, whether she or he could sing or not. Mother had a beautiful voice and Dad was not too bad either. The rest of us kinda fit in. When we kids were little, we would coax Mother to sing My Darling Nellie Gray no that we could cry in tune with her singing. I led the crying but had wonderful support from the girls.

I was big enough by this time to do about everything that had to be done around the place. I was as long as a rope and about the same size around. Sometimes when one of the neighbors needed help, especially with the livestock, I was allowed to go and help. I had developed into a fairly good roper, I could front foot a horse and throw him easier than most of the grown men. I really like working with the horses and got to do quite a bit of breaking and training. I was getting to be a better rider all the time. I learned a little each time I got throwed off and there were several of those times. I was pretty proud when I was sent to represent the Britton spread. I really enjoyed working with Mr. LaBreque. He could do more with a bunch of cattle with less work or fuss than anyone I ever knew. What he did not explain I could get from observation. As the years went by the old man depended on me more and more. Especially to move his beef cattle. The old timers said that LaBreque could talk to the cows and knew what they said in return.

This was the year that I broke Closer to ride. He was a full brother to Snicker I broke before. Like Snicker, he was wild as a deer and as mean as a coyote. He was four years old. I got him in the round corral and roped him. He came for me on his hind legs with his front feet out in front like a boxer. I could see that this was not going to work. George Olsen, a neighbor boy, was there to help me. I front footed the little bugger, throwed him and we put a "W" on him. This was a rope around his neck closer to his shoulders, then back to a ring strapped around his hind leg then back to the loop around his neck.

We let him up and started in. I would start toward him and he would strike out at me with his front feet. George would jerk up of the "W" rope and he would fall. We did this till he gave up. I finally got so that I could get up to him and pet him. He was a long time getting to trust me enough to let me around his front end, I didn't try the other. I slicker broke him. Pull his foot up and move at him with a slicker or blanket. I did this till I could throw a blanket over his head without him flinching. I worked with him in this manner for several days whenever I had time. I would put the saddle on him loose and finally cinched it up. I was everyplace but behind him. I knew if I got behind him, he would kick me clear out of the corral if I gave him a chance. I finally got him to where it was time for me to ride him.

I took him and old Jim out in the round corral, I tied him up to Jim and got on him. He sure tried to get me off, but Jim held him and would back up or come ahead as I ordered him to. It sure quieted the colt down. I got off and on him several times that morning. The reason for all this precaution was two-fold. In the first place, I was sure he had the potential for a real good horse and the second was that I was not good enough to ride him on equal terms. I was sure if he ever throwed me it would happen more than once.

In a day or so Dad had time to snub him for me and we started out. The colt was really nervous but no more than I. After we went a mile or so we let him loose from Jim and I was on my own. The work and time we spent with the colt really paid off. He really was not afraid. I rode him everyday and he got better and better. He bucked with me every morning not hard enough to throw me but hard enough to let me know he was there. I know he could have thrown me if he really took to me. He was as I expected, the best saddle horse I ever owned and I believe as good was there was in the country.

This was an unusual year for South Dakota, we had way about normal rainfall. Every pothole and the lake beds were full. The dry creeks ran most of the time. The crops were excellent and the hay was plentiful.

Dad's idea of the over head cable and hayfork really paid off. He started with the first cutting of alfalfa. Had several tons and this made the base of the stack. Next came the rye cut when it was in full bloom. The alfalfa was ready again by this time and was stacked on top of the first two layers. Dad had planted several acres of sudan grass. This had grown to five or six feet high and made the fourth layer. I almost forgot, salt was added to each layer of feed. We cut corn and got it stacked before the third cutting of alfalfa was ready. Then came the native hay. When we finished the stack was thirty feet or more in width and as high as we could go under the cable. It was over a hundred feet long. Dad estimated there was over two hundred tons in the stack. When we fed off the stack, we had to cut through with a hay knife. It was packed much too hard to fork any other way. It made a wonderful feed. Every two or three days they would get a change of feed and really would go after it.

The stack settled down tight enough that a stake driven into the side of it would hold a wild horse. And did.

The ducks and geese came in great numbers that fall and we ate many of them. I know my mother canned some. I don't remember how they turned out but I am sure they would make a welcome change from fried down pork and cold packed beef, which was not bad. Dad got a Sandhill crane one afternoon. We dressed him out, he was about the size of a small turkey. Mother roasted him and had some of the neighbors in for supper. Any reason for having a party was a good one.

Winter held off pretty good and no snow to speak of till Christmas time. Then we got it and had all we needed till spring. We rode to school most of that winter. Margaret was only seven years old. Francis and Julie rode real well by this time. Margaret would double up with one or the other of us.

1916 The coming of spring was not unusual, it came about the same time every year, but with differences now and then. This year the snow stayed till late in March. One day we had a foot of snow, the night a Chinook wind started in out of the northwest and in another day the snow was all gone and spring had arrived, with the early song birds. We still had quite a wait before we would see Bobolinks, Killdeer or Curlews. They don't like snow between their toes. They do make mistakes now and then though.

Mother always raised a lot of turkeys. They had the run of the place and made their nests wherever they pleased. She had real good luck with them and when fall came, we had turkeys all over the place. She never penned them. The hens would take their babies out to feed in the morning and bring them home night. When they were still quite small, they would roost on the corral fences or some piece of machinery. Soon they were on the ridge pole of the barn. Made a good place for them to roost and they left a lot of insulation and roofing material every morning. Mother lost some to coyotes, four legged, and about the seventy-five to the same kind of critter, two legged. Mother sold a lot of them. She shopped them to Fox in Minneapolis.

Dad decided we needed more land broken up so we started in. I was as tall as I ever was to be and was quite strong, I have to have strength when we hit a patch of Niggerwool. We plowed with four head of horses strung out. This Niggerwool was a heavily rooted plant sometimes call blackroot. It would slow up a good strong team when they hit a very wide spot of growth. At any rate, we stared and worked at it from time to time as the other work would let us. With the two plows, we could get two acres a day. We would make a round which would be a mile long and then the horses could rest while we sharpened the plow lay. This was done by pounding out the lay, or share, or bit of the plow. We used a small anvil and ballpeen hammer. Not nearly as hard to do as it sounds.

I think that we got about twenty acres broke and planted to Squaw corn. The rains came and everything grew as it can in Dakota when conditions are right. I had two acres of my own for the Corn and Hog Club. It got about shoulder high and the daddy of all hail storms came along. It took everything. All that was left of my corn was some stubs. The folks encouraged me to keep the weeds down for the rest of the year and then I could replant the next year. My first experience with the next year in farming.

The folks were still planning on building the new house and the bad hail gave us time to haul both rock and gravel for the cement walls when the time came to build. We hauled a few loads and then had to start scrounging up feed for the livestock. Again we cut thistles for feed, and anything else that would be better than a snow drift for a cow. The Marietta place had all been broken up when Nash owned it and it raised a whale of a crop of thistles. We cut them and bucked them into huge piles and left them for the cattle to feed on in the field.

It was the time of the year for us to get at least some of the winter meat taken care of. Dad and old Ted Baseler butchered four big sows. I helped of course. Those old sows would weight over four hundred pounds. They were hung out overnight so the carcasses would cool out properly. The next day Dad stared cutting them up and the job of curing started. Mother and I both helped at the job and Francis and Julie took care of the meals.

Some of the hams were smoked. We used Jim Bell's recipe for smoking. After smoking, the hams were hung in a cool place. Some of the hams and shoulders were fried down and placed in huge stone jars. The slices would be carefully placed in the jars and then boiling lard poured over the meat. Some of the leaner pieces that could be cut off the bones could be cold-packed. Put in mason jars and cooked from two to three hours in wash boilers with about three inches of water in the bottom. The boilers had wooded slats in the bottom of the boilers to keep the jars off the boiler bottoms. When the required time had passed, the meat was taken out of the boilers and the mason lids were tightened up and the meat was ready to keep for years. Really good too.

Dad was good with meat and made sausages, bologna and head cheese. I can't tell you how the head cheese was made but we like it. Dad and I got a lot of cottontails and we mixed the cottontail meat with the pork. It would make delicious sausage. The sausage had to be fried down too unless it was cold enough to keep. Mother had geese and we had a roast goose now and then. She kept the down and made some lovely pillows and feather beds. When it would get cold enough to keep a beef outside, one was dressed and the year's supply of meat was ready.

One of the jobs was rendering out the lard. We had a huge kettle. Probably thirty-five gallons, it had legs high enough to let a good fire be built under it. My job was to keep the fire going and to keep the grease stirred so that it would not burn and darken the lard. We used ash wood. It burned evenly and held the heat. This was a tiresome job, partly I suppose because it was a one kid job and I was alone most of the time. The stuff had to be stirred almost constantly to keep it from scorching. We generally had over a hundred pounds of lard and I suppose twelve hundred pounds of cured meat. I can't remember being hungry.

We always had plenty and the regular supply of meat was augmented with wild games. Grouse were always plentiful, curlews, duck and geese in the spring and fall. Dad got an antelope one of the first years. There was a good supply of both deer and antelope until the soddies came and then they moved out. I enjoyed the hunting. Dad was almost unbeatable with the rifle and mother was very good with the shotgun. I taught both Francis and Julie to shoot and they both were good with a rifle.

I have always thought that loving the outdoors, knowing about the animals and the birds, the big and the small added more to the hunt than just getting meat for the table. Of course never being hungry for more than the time between a couple of meals might make a difference in one's thinking.

School was about the same as always. I and Dad had traded around till we had ponies for the girls and I was riding Closer. Francis was riding the little bay mare that had so much fun with Dad. Julie was riding a baldfaced pacer I had traded Ed Mequirk out of. He had white eyes with huge oval pupils, very dark. Naturally his name was White Eye. I might add that trading for White Eye was an easy job. Ed McQuirk like many others who lived north of the Cheyenne stopped at our place on their way back and forth from Phillip. I traded him a pig for him. It was a nice pig though. Oh yes, Margaret rode on behind one or the other of us most of the time. She could ride my old Billie some of the time.

1917 This was the year that we built the Marietta Consolidated School. Dad bought a Model T truck that year and he hauled the material for the new building. Louie Nelson was the contractor and George Michaels and I was the crew. George knew little or nothing about carpentry and I knew less, I was willing to work and George was willing for me to do it.

Louis knew his business and it was not long before we had it framed, roofed and ready to finish. We started to lath and get ready to plaster. I was nailing on lath, I was really slow. Louie was watching and after a while said "Artie, at the going rate for lathers and what I am paying you, I figure I am losing ten dollars a day." I don't believe that it was quite that bad. At any rate, we got the building done in time for school.

We started to get the telephones in. This was the barb wire telephone. Rev. Davis did the insulating of the top wire of the fences. We had to set high poles to get over the gates. Davis installed the telephones, battery types that had to be cranked. We spent most of the summer and early fall at this. Davis worked steady and I help when I could.

The coming of the telephone was a wonderful thing. It was only a short time before everyone knew what everyone else had done and when they did it. This was really a party line.

There was probably twenty or twenty-five on the same line. There were several lines this size connected by exchanges. By going through two exchanges, we could get to Philip. If we were in a hurry, it might be quicker to ride in to town. It really worked pretty good. Rubbing was prohibited so we kids just listened. In case of trouble, one real long ring alerted the whole neighborhood. Rubbering also brought some good laughs.

Remember me telling you about the high cable hay stacking system of Dad's? Well, Bill Schuette liked the idea and built one for himself. Bill was on level ground and had to have two poles and they were situated north and south. They were German people and Annie talked quite broken English. One day Bill was helping us with some work or other and the wind was blowing a gale. Annie called and asked for Bill. The following conversation went something like this. "Will you had better come home. The North Pole has fallen and the South Pole is leaning way over." Bill said, "Take it easy now Annie, if the North Pole is down and the South Pole is falling, I can't do any good anyhow." A lot of people heard the whole conversation and got a big kick out of it. So you see, with the rubbering privileges, the telephone was a godsend to the community.

By this time, Julie was big enough to be a lot of help. She was a good rider and took care of a lot of the routine riding. She would get in the horses and have the milk cows in for the evening milking. She could handle a team quite well and was helping with the haying. Dad had bought a new mower and brought it out. It was a McCormic Big Six. It cost a lot of money and we were very proud of it. We had been cutting the second cutting of alfalfa and had left the machinery at the field. One morning, I hitched the grey mare and Stub to the wagon, tied Julie's rake team, and little team of mules to the rear of the wagon and we went up to make hay. It was not to be.

We hitched Julie's team to the rake and let them stand, they were well broke and gentle. Then we started to hitch up my team, they were well broke but high lifed and skittish. Julie was behind holding the lines and I got the neck yoke fastened up when a huge horsefly lit on the grey mare's rump, she started to kick and raise hell, and before I could get back to the lines, they had jerked away from Julie and were on their way. They were pulling the mower by the neck yoke. They ran about a hundred yards to where a gate opened to the house. They attempted to turn in but did not quite make it. Stub was on the north side of the fence and the grey mare on the south side. The end of the mower tongue and the neck yoke was breaking off the fence pots. Each post slowed them up and after about thirty posts had them stopped. Julie and I were right behind them and got them unhitched from what was left of the mower.

By the time Julie and I had the fence repaired, Dad had repaired the mower and we were back in the haying business again. I know Dad gave us a Dutch Blessing and a lot of words of caution. After that when we had to hitch up a team of questionable temperament, we drove the wagon in front of the machine we were hitching to. At least they would have to back up before they could start to run. We got the hay mowed and raked. Dad got an overshot stacker and a buck rake. This speeded up the haying. I ran the buck rake. Julie drove the stacker team and Dad did the stacking. We could put up a lot of hay this way, five or six stacks a day. We never stacked any hay in the field. We had the stack under the poles and cable completed.

Fall came early that year. If you have never seen an early fall in the Dakotas, you missed some beautiful weather. The air was as clear as crystal and you could see for miles. Early mornings brought many mirages, sometimes it looked like castles upside down and more often than not great bluffs or mountains would appear. I never tired of the phenomenon. The grass, the trees and all plant life have completed another year of their life cycle. There is only one drawback to fall, it is so close to winter.

We had a bunch of cows on the ridge pasture between Haxby Draw and Bridger Creek. It was time to get them home to the winter pasture. Mother was going with me. She suggested we walk. She was a good walker and loved it. We started out early in the afternoon and a front was moving in by the time we got going. No wind just heavy clouds drifting to the southeast.

We took our time and even then it was not long till we had arrived at the pasture and it had started to snow. We had Ted with us and it was not long till we had the cattle headed for home.

It was about two miles from the ridge pasture to home. It had started to snow, big flakes as big as quarters coming straight down and partially melting as they fell. The old cows knew where they were going and moved right along and it was not long before we were home. We had about six inches of snow by that time. The next morning, the snow depth had increased to about ten inches and was already starting to melt away. Mother really enjoyed our trip with the cattle and the snow. No one could love the outdoors more than she did and I never found a lovelier person to share pleasures with.

The snow went off quickly and it was time to get the marketable cattle ready for the shipment. Dad and I cut them from the herd and Francis and Julie kept them bunched. I am not sure how many there was but it was a sizable bunch. We put them in the horse pasture east of the house. Herm Vaughn and LaBreque were to drive with us. I went up to help LaBreque cut his herd and bring them to our place. We got them cut out and the next morning, I started them home. We actually did not drive them, we just kept them grazing in the direction we wanted them to go.

LaBreque brought a wagon for the bed rolls and grub. He tied his saddle horse on behind. A pretty little white horse as fat as a butter ball, well trained and a good rope horse. The first couple of days there was a certain amount of restlessness among the cattle. Three strange herds thrown caused some trouble. One of us stayed with the herd and kept them together and in one place.

We were just north of Philip on the third day and bedded the cattle down at the head of a little draw. Believe it or not, cattle like to bed down on a slope. They get up several times in a night and lay down on the opposite side. Everything went well till after midnight when it was my stint at night riding. One of Herm's heifers began to have amorous intentions and the steers were running her all over the place. I was riding a colt and LaBreque told me to take his horse and hogtie her. I hadn't checked the cinch and when the heifer hit the end of the rope, the little white horse sat dawn to hold her and the saddle went right over his head with me on it. I continued the ride the saddle and the heifer soon choked down. We tied her down and the rest of the night passed quietly. LaBreque had been riding my colt and was right there to give me what for for not checking my cinch. He really let me have it but I knew he was pleased with the way things turned out.

The next day we got the cattle in the stock yards and loaded on the cars. Dad, LaBreque and Vaughn went with the train to Sioux City. The next day I was ready for the trip home. I had the wagon and some supplies. Had the saddle horses tied to the back of the wagon and along side the work team. Another bunch of cattle had been sent to market, and I had learned a little more about the cattle business.

As we were a long way from town, the folks always stocked up on everything needed to get us through another winter. A lot of our groceries was bought from Sears Roebuck. Cookies and crackers came in probably 24"x16"x6" boxes. The coffee came in 10 lb. cans, the tea in cans but smaller. Spices and flavoring came in cans and bottles. Everything was top quality and cheaper then we could get it in town. We would take our twenty-five sacks of flour and a couple sacks of sugar. I don't remember anytime we ever run out of staples.

The fall was beautiful after a snow that was supposed to be a rain. The fall haze was very evident, especially at sundown.

The reflections of the sun on the haze kept the western sky aglow for an hour or more after the sun had set. Fall is beautiful on the Great Plains.

School Started. I missed some of the beginning days. Dad and I were hauling the winter supply of wood from the Cheyenne River. The floods carried the washed out trees down the river and deposited them in great piles on the sand bars. Some of these piles had lain there for years, consequently the wood was completely cured and perfect for firewood.

We pulled the logs from the drift piles. Trimmed them and loaded them on the wagons. It took quite a while to do this and we would have to have two days for the trip. The loads would be heavy and the Bridger creek hill was long and steep. We had four horses strung out on each wagon. We got our wagons loaded and stayed at Fred Barhold's for the night. It had snowed a little in the night but we got a fair start in the morning.

I was in the lead. The last part of the Bridger hill was steep and very sideling. My wagon was narrow tired and I made it to the top. Dad's wide tired wagon slid down enough to tip over, broke the reach which was an oak two by four intended to hold the hind wheels to the front. Dad's wheel team had been pulled over the edge with the load. We got them unhitched and up on the level. We pulled the wagon out two wheels at the time and then had to skid the logs up to where we could reload them. We had no way to replace the reach that had broken so we tied dad's team on behind my load and went on home, about twelve miles.

The next day dad hewed out a reach from an ash pole and we went to get the spilled load. As we had two wagons, we had two small loads instead of one large one. We were home in time for supper. We now had more than enough wood for winter and began making preparations for getting it sawed up.

Herm Vaughn had a buzz saw so we went to Vaughn's and helped them buzz up their wood and then they came up and cut ours. Sure did look good to see plenty of wood. It took a lot because the winter winds could come through the old walls of the Marietta home. It had been built out of grocery boxes with a tin roof and tin sheeting on the outside walls. We could keep warm close to the stoves. At night we had feather beds, wool blankets, homemade quilts and company. No bad, huh?

I was late getting started to school and had to work like the dickens to get caught up. I am not sure I ever did. Missing the first part of algebra sure as hell did not help any and I had trouble, I could get it but I sure had to work for it. We all enjoyed school and had very good teachers. I know that they would have been considered uneducated by today's standards. They knew how to read what was printed in the books and they knew how to get it across to us.

The kids quite often brought some of the neighbor kids home to stay all night. They had a lot of girl talk to get done and giggles to get out of the way and then we had time for a songfest. Harmony was strived for and that is where I came in handy. I could sing bass, tenor or even help the girls out with soprano and usually did at some time or another during a song. Any song. The girls complained about the diversification and explained to me how it should be done without too much results.

I am quite sure that this was the year that my cousin Isobel was with us. Isobel was the girl that my mother nursed along with me. She was a beautiful, very talented girl. Will relate an incident to give you an idea of her wonderful gift. She and I had been at Bennet's, a neighbor who had a friend visiting. A well known piano player. While we were there, he entertained us with a piece of classical music on the piano. Isobel kept hurrying me to go home. We went, on the way home she explained that she wanted to get home so that she could play the piece before she forgot it. She did just that.

I lost track of her for a long time but was told that she studied music somewhere in California. She finally married a wealthy doctor. I have been told that although she got a wonderful education in music, she lost the wonderful, spontaneous ability to play any melody she heard by ear.

She and her husband stopped at our house for a short visit and I never saw her again.

Winter came and with it the card parties and just parties. A lot of them were at our home. We had a lot of room and more important, we had Mother. She would always cheerfully prepare food for any amount of people. I remember one time we were to have an oyster supper and dance. The crowd was estimated at about half the people who came. I was helping mother and we both knew that there was not enough to go around. I was worried and mentioned my fear to Mother. She said, "Artie, there is no use worrying about something that you cannot change. This stew could still be oyster stew if there was only one oyster and twice as much milk, get me some more milk." The stew was a great success and the lesson remained in my thoughts forever. I was blessed with a wonderful mother.

1918 Early in the fall of 1918, Anderson Michaels, the banker came out to the place and talked to Dad and Mother. He thought we should buy more cattle, using the old argument that to pay off the mortgage, it would be advisable to increase the debt and buy more cattle. Mother was not in favor of the deal. It looked alright to Dad and I kid like, liked the idea of more cattle. Mother as usual was right. We contracted with the bank to buy seventy-five head of Texas yearlings. They came complete with horns, long ones, which showed the cross breeding the longhorn cattle. They had to be dehorned, branded and vaccinated. This set them back and they really did not get ready for the winter that really set in earlier than usual. We got some snow in late September. It melted off only to be replaced by fresh. The little Texas steers simply did not have time to get acclimated to our South Dakota weather.

Brother John Lars was born on the fifteenth of October. He was not so very big around but he was as long as a piece of rope. He fit right in with the rest of the bunch.

Just before my birthday, Dad broke a leg. It was not a bad break according to the doctor, from some of the language he used it must have been a bad one. There was enough lumber in the splint to make a good bonfire. The kids were in school and mother had her hands full with the baby and Dad plus all the other Mother jobs. This left me on my own to get everything ready for winter. I moved all the steers and dry cows to our place where they could generally find grazing and good protection in the rough breaks I kept all the cows and young stuff at the old Marietta place.

This was of course under Dad's direction. The big barn would hold from three to four hundred head by crowding in case of a storm. The center was twenty ft. wide and one hundred feet long. The haymow was over that part and full of hay. Uncle Leon had helped me fill the haymow with native wheat grass. It is a very nutritious grass and on a good year will have a lot of seed on it. I kept on hauling hay in and filled part of the area under the haymow. I thought it was a stupid thing to do with my very valuable time. My folks were always having me do stupid things, and the funny part of that is that they generally turned out just right.

The snow came early. We kept the cattle on grazing as long as possible to save on feed as we always did. We did have a lot of thistles, grass and weeds bunched south of the house around the dam. They could just about get along on their own. I kept the water holes in the ice open so they had plenty of water. By the last of November, we had the cows and weaned calves on feed, they still went out and grazed some. Remember me telling you about the linebacks? Those rustling buggars just about made their own way. They were wild and hated to go near the barn.

This was the year of the influenza epidemic. Many of our people in the country died. It was so bad that morticians could not keep up. At times, there were several bodies in the depot at Philip. They were buried as soon as possible and even then they got ahead of the living. The bad part was that as the winter wore on the disease increased in intensity. The snow depth made it practically impossible for the doctors to make their rounds and especially in the county. The flu was worse in town and Dr. Ramsey had his hands full. The number of bodies in the depot increased.

In our particular area, we were very fortunate. Few of us got the flu or if we did, came through alright. We had old fashioned remedys and they worked. At least we all survived. Here again Mother Wedeman was an angel of mercy. There were a lot of people that would not have lived without her help. She, like a lot of the oldtimers, my mother included, knew how to break a fever and cure almost anything. The cures included mustard poultices, homemade cough syrup made of horehound candy, lemons, honey and god only knows what else. Hot toddys made from homemade wine and whisky was highly used. I suppose that many of the men took of snort or two between the drinks of hot water. Anyway, we and all of our near neighbors made it through the winter.

We did not lose any cattle to speak of till spring. We had a bad storm in March. About a foot of snow at least. Dad went to town with a four horse team and brought out a load of cotton seed cake. It was different from the modern feed supplements. It looked like it had been baked in a large pan and then broken up into chunks. It was hard as a rock. An old cow would chew on a chunk for a long time before getting it down. At least it kept them busy. Some of the cows would not touch it. Dad thought it helped to bring some of them through. I hauled corn from Morgan's over on the Millville Flats, I drove a four horse team and could haul thirty bushels of corn on the cob. If we had fed what was needed, I could not possibly kept up with the demand.

Just as things began to look a little better in April, we got another foot of snow driven by strong winds. Dad and I had all the cattle on the Marietta place in the barn. The area between the horse barns we filed up with heavy cows. The storm lasted about three days and there was no way we could get the cattle to water. The barn was too warm with so many cattle in it and we had to leave some of the doors open. Snow blowed in and really made a mess. We did not lose any during the storm. One little two year old heifer had a calf and I broke her to milk and could get about enough for little brother John to drink.

Due to exposure, I suppose, Dad got the flu and had to go to bed.

When the storm was over, Mother, Julie and I decided to get the cattle to water. We had the dam south of the house. We took the horses and broke a path to the dam. After several trips, we started to move the cattle. The old cows went right down and drank. We had some trouble with the young stuff. We got most of them watered and let them come back to the barn as they pleased. The hay in the barn was a godsend.

Mother had a bunch of turkeys which roosted on the roof of the barn. The first night of the storm, Francis and I crawled up on the roof and got some of them carried into the hayloft. Most of the rest were frozen the next morning.

In the last of April, Dad and I saddled up and rode over to the home place to see what the results of the last storm was. It was not good. There was no dead steers near the big shed, we did find some there was no chance to save and shot them. Dad figured it would be better to give what feed we had to steers that could make it. We picked up a couple of fresh horses and rode north to Leon's place. We just had a couple of dead ones up there. Most of them had wintered the storm near a hay stack.

On the way home, we passed the head of a draw and saw a few dead ones sticking out of the snow. They were in a deep little drawn just off the flats. When the snow went off, we found about sixty head in one piles. They were Bill Hill's and had drifted several miles from his pasture.

The weather was really warming up and wherever the ground was bare, the grass was growing. We spent most of our time trying to keep the weak cattle from trying to graze. Most of them were very weak and could not do much walking. Leon was helping us then and we got feed to everything we could. We still had hay on the home place. It had been impossible for us to get to the cattle for some time because of the deep snow. The strong natives found enough to eat. I found a bunch west of the shed about a mile. No way to get a wagon to them so I tired great bunches of hay to pack saddles on work horses and got them fed. They came out alright.

Trying to take care of the Texans that were left was really frustrating. We would find one down from weakness and tail him up and try to get him to eat an ear of corn, nine times out of ten, he would take a run at us and go down again. I got so that I could tail one of them up with one hand.

The old roan cow that I had paid too much for had been in the barn all winter and was in good shape. She had a nice heifer calf. She was a good milk cow and we soon had enough milk for the calf and all of us too. This is just as good a place as any for the results of my personal losses. Out of the seventeen head that I started the winter with, I had old roanie, her two year old daughter, the baby calf, another two year old heifer, dry two two year old steers and one yearling steer. We hadn't a good count of the folks' losses but the percentage was not so great as mine.

Another storm incident; Addie Britton, the son of old Asa Britton, came to our house for help. He had a huge carbuncle or boil on the heel of his hand. A huge abscess. Mother and Dad examined him and he had streaks clear to his shoulder, a sure sign of blood poisoning. Mother boiled Dad's razor ready for the lancing. I held Addie's hand and Dad made a cut across the boil. Addie groaned and said, "George, I am going to faint." Dad said, 'Go ahead, Addie," and cut across the other way. The folks treated the cut with turpentine and started to put on hot packs of epsom salts.

Addie was in no shape to go home or to get his work done if he could go. I went over to take care of his old parents and the stock. Got the chores done and cut and carried in enough wood to last them till the next day. I was about to leave when the old lady asked me to dump the bedroom chamber, a device to eliminate the necessity for going to the little house on the prairie with the new moon cut in the door. As I was coming out of the bedroom with the chamber, Mrs. Britton, said, "Asa can't hit the pot so I make him use a can."

I went home with Addie the next morning, did the chores for him and cut enough wood to last them several days. Addie's hand came along fine, thanks again to pioneer surgery.

After getting a tally on the cattle, we found we had lost thirty-seven head of Natives and thirty-one of the Texans. Not as bad as some of our neighbors, but plenty bad. The severe winter was still taking it's toll. Some of the cows lost their calves adding to the loss. We had enough feed left so that it was possible to keep the heavy cows where they could be watched and helped if necessary. That just about wraps up the story of the winter of 1918 and 19.

1919 I started skinning out the frozen and starved cattle. I used a team, I would skin out the head and legs and split them down the belly. Hitch the team on and pull the hide off. It took a snappy team. They had to hit the pull with a jerk either the hide came right off, or more knife skinning was necessary. On a good day, I could take off a hundred to two hundred dollars worth of hides. Old Bill Hill let me have the hides of the sixty head that had snowed under on Leon's place. Some of them were a little ripe before I got them skinned out. All in all, I made enough to buy five heifer calves, so then I had twelve head.

This was the spring that Aunt Sadie and Uncle Ebb came out. Uncle Leon was to farm Mrs. LaBreque's farm and they were to help Leon. I believe that they both spent more time at our place than they did with Leon. Leon needed help however. He had trouble getting along with Mrs. LaBreque. Dad told him maybe that he could get along better with her if he would make passionate love to her. I remember Leon said, "God George, I couldn't do that." I do not believe Leon wrong, I couldn't have done it either.

Ebb helped me break out four head of work horses for Leon and Ebb took them up to Leon's place. They turned out very good and was a real nice four up. Leon's place was about eight miles north of our place. Sadie was keeping house for Leon. Ebb stayed with Leon till he had all his crops in and then moved in with us.

Ebb and I broke out the rest of the land that was to be used for farming. Made us about one hundred and eighty acres. Got it all planted to squaw corn.

This was the year we started building on the new house in earnest. Dad hired John Stark. Mr. Stark had just finished building a wonderful barn for John Wedeman. Ebb and I was the crew. Julie and Francis did all the riding so Ebb and I could work pretty steady. Dad kept us in supplies and helped with the forming. We had plenty of gravel. We had hauled gravel whenever we could find it for the last couple of years. The Model T could haul about a yard. Dad brought the cement from Philip. The Dakota Cement Co. had started up and that is the kind we used. By the way, Ralph Bellamy was the company boss.

We used the lumber from the first house and had enough for the forming. The walls were ten inch cement walls, Stark was a good concrete man and it was not long until we had the bottom floor walled. We then moved to the upstairs rooms. The house was cut into the bank so that both floors were on the ground. Ebb and I were both strong and could get a lot of work done. We did kinda like to pester Mr. Stark. I know a couple of times when a five gallon pail of cement might accidentally get spilled when the old man was directly under it. I am sure he thought that the accidents were contrived but Ebb and I were always very sorry that it had happened.

Ebb and I helped the old man whenever he needed help. After we got the roof on, he took over the finishing work. While we were putting the shingles on, Mr. Stark was laying the shingles and Ebb and I were nailing. Mr. Stark always wore a dress coat. One day we were nailing when some way Mr. Stark's coat tail became nailed to the roof just before Ebb and I had gotten down to the ground. He always thought that I did it, you never could tell. Ebb went back to Leon's and I was able to go back to ranch and farm work.

When we branded that spring, we had most of the neighbors as usual. We only had a little over a hundred to brand. Charlie Price and I were hindfooting and dragging the calves to the fire to be branded. We did quite a lot of kidding as to which was the better roper. I though I was pretty hard to beat. Charlie proved me wrong. Bill Schuette was there. We had a new bull that had to be branded. We contrived to get Bill right on top of him and some way the bull got up with Bill astride him. He stayed a while before getting throwed. I really think that he enjoyed the ride, but he didn't talk as if he did.

We were through branding by noon. After dinner, we decided to ride some broncs. We had a few that I was breaking and some that would buck at any time. Ebb was always trying something that was western and cowboy. He wanted to bulldog something. He tried a couple of yearlings and had pretty good luck so he decided to try the bull we had just branded. He had horns alright, they turned down. I tried to get him to run, he did trot a little, Ebb slid off on him. The bull stopped, tossed his head a couple of times and threw Ebb about twenty feet. Did not hurt either of them but it ended the bulldogging for that day. I let Ebb try to ride my Closer horse. He throwed Ebb in a couple of jumps. I then put him on a colt that needed riding. Ebb rode him very well. Closer was something else. We rode a couple of colts out that afternoon.

Ebb was a very determined young man. The first cow he roped he was riding Snicker. The colt that had throwed me so many times when I was breaking him. A really good rope horse. Ebb throwed loop after loop at the cow. I don't know how many loops it took but Ebb finally caught her. Ebb, the cow and the horse were all played out. It wasn't too long till Ebb was a good rider and roper. He got throwed a lot but got so that he could ride most anything that came along.

The house was built and it was time to move in. It was the beginning of a fun filled time. I was seventeen and the girls had blossomed out into beautiful girls. Naturally we had a lot of parties and dances. The downstairs was twenty-four by thirty-eight, the kitchen added twelve feet more. So you see, we had a big living room with not too much furniture to take up space. The piano was the biggest and the most important. The table in the kitchen took up most of that room. Mother had a kitchen cabinet and a big range with a water reservoir on the back for heating water, off the kitchen and under the upstairs rooms was a room twelve feet wide and twenty-four feet long. This was pantry, cooler, root cellar and storage. The pantry was mother's idea and really a life saver for her.

Some time during the moving period we had a terrific electrical storm. Dad and I were working a bunch of cattle west of the place when the storm hit. There must have been a lot of different strokes at the same time. We were moving the herd. A registered bull and a two year old heifer was killed, one of the bolts must have stunned Dad's horse, he took off from the herd on a dead run. Dad said that it felt like a big icicle was standing on top of his head. I was riding a colt and both he and I was scared stiff. I never did like lightning and that storm did nothing to improve my feelings.

While this was happening to us the folks at the house were experiencing some weird things. Babe was standing near the telephone and a bolt must have hit the house or the line. It tore the telephone off the wall and knocked Babe out for a short time. Ted Baseler and Walt Bennet were standing in the barn door watching the storm. Walt was knocked unconscious. He had been badly burned when just an infant by lightning and was highly vulnerable to electricity. The same storm killed a little buckskin horse south of the barn. A prairie fire was set on the Taddegan place a half mile south of the place. We have no way of knowing whether it was one stroke or a hundred but I do know that this is rather an accurate account of the results.

We had just got moved into the new place when a boy with a broken leg rode into the yard. Mother sent one of the girls after Dr. Wahley who came over and set the leg. The boy was Hartzel Olds. He stayed with us for several years or at least he made it the home to come to when he needed a place to stay. Hartzel was devoted to Mother and the girls and was good help around the place. We eventually lost track of him. He finally got in trouble in a horse stealing mess. We always thought he was framed. He was impulsive and gullible but we believed honest.

We had several parties, just people dropping in and staying for dancing, playing cards or maybe for Mother's wonderful eats. Then just before school started, someone came up with the idea of a house warming. I will name some of the ones I can remember who came. The Hanrahans, LaBreques, John and Suzie Olson, Clarence and Irene Shannon, Chuck and Bea Bennett, Howard Churches, John and Sabra Wedeman, Jim and Velva Bell, Ted Baseler, the Jetters and Albert Haines, Uncles Ebb, Leon and Aunt Sadie. Harry Hoag came with them.

Albert Haines played the violin, he liked classical music but could and would play popular tunes. Chuck Bennett and Johnnie Olson could play the violin. I could chord some on a guitar and Harold was getting pretty good on the drums. Several of the girls could play the piano along wit my sisters. At any rate, we had music, it may not have been the best but the dancers did not seem tot mind. Some of the older people played cards in the kitchen. Again the midnight snack was oyster stew. After the lunch, we boys entertained the bunch with stunts and boxing. After a lot of coaxing, we finally persuaded Aunt Sadie to Indian wrestle. She put on a pair of overalls and threw nearly anyone who would take her on, myself included. She was very quick and strong. Some of the older people left rather early but a lot of the kids stayed and we danced till morning.

The next day dad, Ebb and I went over to Pat Foley's to help him cut out a bunch of horses he had sold to the army. We got them cut out and in the bunch was a beautiful black gelding. I mentioned him to Pat and he said the colt was half Arabian , and one thing led to another. I roped him with the intention of leading him to the corrals about three miles away. Pat front footed him and threw him and while I was putting hackamor on him, I decided to ride him home with the other fellows helping me. Anyway, I pulled the cinch under him and got him saddled. I got on him while down and the men let him up. He was naturally afraid and crow-hopped around some but did not buck hard.

The men stayed with me for a little while and then took the horse herd to the ranch. The colt and I were left to ourselves. I was two hours getting to the ranch. He was going good by that time. I rode him home to get him trained. He turned out to be one of the better horses I ever worked with. I never depended on any one helping me in a situation like that again. It was a good joke but it was on me and I didn't like it.

We shipped the cattle shortly after than and Dad topped the market with some three year old steers. They brought a good price and paid off a part of the mortgage. Mother and I both knew Dad was toying with the idea of giving up the ranch. Dad always like the road work, especially the bridge work. I started working out whenever possible after getting the work done at home. I broke our fifty five head of saddle stock for George Ferguson. Just got them well broke to lead and easy to handle. They were well broke to ride but not trained cow horses when I turned them over. They were a nice bunch of horses to work with. They all were about a quarter Morgan breed.

Winter came, Dad was home and I went to work for LaBreque feeding the stock. The tight old man would not let me feed them enough to kept them going good and he was put out at me because they were losing weight. He wanted me to break a colt for him. I told him I would for an additional ten dollars. He wouldn't go for that and decided to break him himself. The colt was snorty as the dickens but well broke to lead. The old man would put him in the bronc stall and let a saddle down on him with a rope and pulley. When the colt raised too much hell, the old man would pull the saddle up. He kept this up till he could saddle the horse. When he decided to ride the colt he took the colt down to a boggy spring hole and bogged him down in it. He rode him there. So after two months work and a lot of trouble he saved ten dollars. I finally finished him out for the old man. . It was mother's idea.

I left LaBreque then and went to work for Herm Vaughn clearing land on the creek bottoms for alfalfa. Bertha was still teaching so Herm hired a little old woman, Mrs. Ben Johnson to do the cooking and housekeeping. She could have been better, she sang a lot and her nose dripped a lot too. She was not too careful about it either. One morning Herm got me up very early. He said the old lady was sick and I was to go to John Olson's for a bottle of whiskey. I got old Closer and rode hard to John's. Changed horses and raced back. Herm gave the old lady a shot and in five minutes she was up and singing the Little Brown Jug. She wasn't sick, she was thirsty. Right after that I went home to get the things done there that needed doing.

Ed McQuirk stopped at our place on his way home from Philip and stayed all night. He lived about ten miles north of the river. He wanted me to come up to his place and help him catch a wild bay colt. He was as wild as a deer and just as beautiful. He could have posed for any of the wild stallion pictures we have seen. When we got ready to catch him, we decided to sure shot him. This means to hang a loop in a place where we could drive him through. We hung the loop in a small ash tree in a way so that it could give and not injure the colt when he came to the end of the rope. We got him headed for the trap as fast has he could run. He did just exactly as he should and we had him. We double roped him and took him to Ed's place. I worked with him a couple of days and took him home. He was just as mean and wild as he was beautiful. Ebb broke him to ride. On this trip, I saw a little blue grey pony. He was little, about six hundred pounds, built like a thoroughbred. I bought him and the girls enjoyed him for as many years as we were there. He could out run a deer for a short distance. We called him Zip.

Many of the boys from our neighborhood were in the army. I tried to get in, did pretty well till I went to get my physical. Dr. Ramsey was one of the examiners. He knew my age and sent me home for good. The end of my military career. We as a community were very lucky. None of our boys were killed and only one badly wounded. Happy Edgar spent more time in the hospital than he did fighting. He had enough medals to break down a good pack mule. That was the war to end wars, it did not succeed but probably came as near as any of the wars since.

I got a new suit in the fall and new pair of shoes. They were called English walkers, too small, pointed toes and they hurt my feet like the devil. Anyway, I dolled up in my new blue serge suit and new shoes and went to Milesville to a dance. Cecil Wedeman was there. She was a real good looker. Dark auburn hair and a lot of it. She had the curves and bumps in the right proportions and in the right places. She condescended to dance with me, in fact we danced together many times that night. My feet were killing me and the calves of my legs were cramped from changing from three inch heels on my boots to the low heeled foot cripplers called English walkers. As I write this some sixty years later, I realize that a relationship stated that night that has lasted over sixty years. The chances are pretty good that it will continue. There is no question that it was the best thing that every happened to me. I have always been afraid to ask Cecil what her thoughts on the relationship was.

1920 This year started smoothly. Not too much snow, we had plenty of feed for the stock but none to spare. My sisters were growing up. The boys were coming quite often to visit with me and spent all of their time with the girls. Howard Wedeman, Harold Ferguson, George and John Olson, Clarence Vaughn, Melvin LaBreque, and Chuck Bennett were the steady callers. The neighbor girls also came. They definitely came to see the girls. They were very nice to me and I was nice to them as they would let me be. Helgesen sisters, Thelma and Stena, Martha and Leona Edwards, Clara Welfl, Cecil Wedeman and Thelma Hill were there quite often. Thelma Hill and I kinda paired off. She was a beautiful girl, black hair and dark eyes. She was a real good horsewoman and a fine companion. She loved to race her horse and hated to get beat. I loved to beat her and did quite often.

Some time in the spring, I took the truck and a bunch of the kids to a spelling contest at Philip. Francis won and Harold Ferguson took second. While we were there, I took the Teachers Exam and passed with a very high grade. You can readily see that the qualifications were not too tough.

Due to the fact that our carry over of feed was not too great, Dad decided to find summer pasture for the cattle which would better winter grazing at home. He arranged with John Barhold for pasture. This land was north of the Moreau River about sixty miles north of our place.

Johnnie Olson, George Rundahl and Harry Hoag went in with us and we got ready to move the herd in early June. We moved the herd to the Cheyenne River. The river was in flood and we had to hold them on the south side for several days. When we decided to cross, we still had swimming water for over a hundred yards. I only had two horses with me, Closer and Pat. Pat was the horse that left me alone with to get to the ranch. I used Pat to get the cattle across the river. Pat loved the water, I rode him bareback and with just a hackamor. We were over an hour getting the cattle across. We lost one yearling that got his head caught in the fork of a tree that had drifted down. The old cows that had calves knew to keep the little ones on the down stream side of them and they all made it in good shape; one old cow lost her calf on the north side of the river and came back to the south side looking for him. That made her swim the river three times.

Harry Hoag had a model "T" we used for a trap wagon. It had a small box on the back that was supposed to carry tents, bedding and provisions. Would have been plenty big if we did not have to haul some of the baby calves and those that got too tired. Took up a lot of room and was a little messy. The calves were not diapered.

We rested the herd about two miles north of the river the fist night. They were really easy to handle, they had been together for over a week and were staying in one bunch. They were tired and bedded down good and we had an easy night.

When we were getting ready to move the next morning, Johnnie asked me to top off his horse for him. I did and he bucked like an outlaw. I got him cooled and Johnnie took over. I did the same for George. The second day the same situation came up and I told them to top off their own mounts. Johnnie got throwed and I had to top off his mount anyway. George decided that the horse he rode the day before would do. At noon he had to change. He got thrown. I had to buck him out for George. Each day it was time to ride the colts, I had to right them first. They later told me they had planned on me taking the rough off them.

We got a Cherry Creek the next day without too much trouble. Harry did have five or six little calves on the old chuck wagon. Had them tied on so that they could not fall off and they had caused no trouble either except that they had not been potty trained. They had messed things up really good. We bedded them down and Harry was to do the night riding till twelve. A real bad electrical storm came up and the rest of us got up and went out to help Harry hold the herd. There was just no use. I never seen cattle scatter like they did. We were till noon the next day getting them rounded up. I know we only made about four miles that day. Lost one little calf. Just couldn't find the little buggar.

A couple of days more and we were on the Barthold Ranch. The pasture we were to use was just west of Thunder Butte Mountain, a rather high butte that sticks up out of the prairie like a sore thumb. Can be seen for many miles. The range was fenced and was nine miles east and west and six miles north and south. We head quartered at the home buildings nearly at the west end of the place. We didn't have to use the chuck wagon except when we were to be out all day. They took care of us at the ranch. Water for the stock was no problem as it had two good creeks crossing the ranch.

Barthold's had not branded and some of our cows had not calved. After we had been there a couple of weeks, we helped brand Barthold's calves. One of Barthold's men and I did the roping. The other boys kept the unbranded calves and their mothers as close to the fires as they could. Tommy Blacksmith was an Indian. He roped for the ranch and I was helping. Tommy was a good hand. A good roper and rider. We were two days rounding up and branding the ranch calves. The next day Tommy and another ranch hand and Harry and I went to a neighboring spread to help brand. It was on the Sheppardson ranch. We were there about three days they had about eight hundred head of calves. Tommy and I did most of the roping.

About the last day of June the ranch boys decided to have a bronc riding contest. They ran in about fifty head of ranch horses. Everyone had to kick in five bucks to compete. And a donation if not a contender. I felt lucky and put up my five. Mr. Barthold put up a pair of elkhide chaps for the winner and a pair of gold plated spurs for second. I stayed lucky, drew a hard bucking horse that looked good in action and had plenty of it. I must have rode him pretty well, I won the chaps and thirty dollars, a lot of money in those days. Tommy Blacksmith was second. I never was sure that Tommy shouldn't have been first. I did not put up any argument however.

The next week we branded. Only had a little over a hundred head. Most of the cows were ours. Harry had a few and Olson's and Rundahl's had steers. We were camped just under Thunder Butte. Harry had lost for the day and had to do the cooking. Johnnie, George and I went up the top of the butte and were entertaining ourselves rolling rocks down the hill. We finally got a big flat round rock stood on edge and headed it down the hill. It picked up a lot of speed and headed right for camp. Harry saw it coming and left the flats. A hobbled horse was about fifty feet from the chuck wagon and the rock passed between him and the chuck wagon. Harry was far off and a little hot under the collar. We insisted it was purely accidental, Harry accepted the explanation. He did not act like a true believer. I can see that it would be easier to believe if one was a roller instead of a rollee.

We all went to Faith for the Fourth of July celebration. They had fireworks and a small rodeo. I entered in the calf roping and bronc riding. I did real well. I didn't get killed. I was riding Closer, the calf took off and I got a rope on him right now. Closer worked like the perfectionist that he was. I ran to the calf and throwed him. I started to tie him. I had trouble trying to decide which three of the thirteen legs he was kicking with to tie. I finally got him tied and got up. So did the calf. The announcer yelled, "No time." After all that time? I had a lot easier time with the saddle bronc. I got on him and the blindfold was jerked off and he threw me. I got a real big hand, it was helping me up.

The dance that night was a lot better. At least I did not get kicked with legs that were supposed to be tied or get skinned up from falling ten or fifteen feet. I danced a few times. But the only girl I wanted to dance with turned me down. She said she was not at all particular but she would not dance with a long lean cowpuncher with two months beard and hair to match, besides other things not quite so noticeable. After asking her two or three times, I decided she did not care to dance with me. Funny isn't it?

The rest of that year went real well on the Moreau River. We had plenty of rain and the grass was up to a tall horse's belly. One day I was riding along at a good stiff lope and broke over a little hill into a shallow draw. A little burro mare and her colt was laying down in the bottom of the draw. She jumped up and let out a loud bray. Scared the hell right out of old Pat and me too. That little colt was not over eighteen inches high. He was cute as a bug. The first baby burro I ever saw. If I could paint, I would try to bring them to life.

There was a big brown billy goat that lived on the ranch. He was a real stinker. He would have smelled bad enough without any extra effort. He developed the habit of urinating on his chin whiskers. The results were good if an evil smell was desired. One evening he was in the house yard. Johnnie thought it would be a good thing to tie him under Mr. Barthold's window. There was a new rope hanging on the kitchen porch. We took the rope and tied the goat under the old man's window. A nice breeze came up early and wafted the (Goat Parfum Delux) into John's window. Just before daylight, we heard John yelling and swearing real good. He turned the goat loose, he did not untie the rope, he cut it. At breakfast we knew the joke was a good one. He said, "If I ever find out who the S.O.B. is who did that dirty so and so trick I will take the price of the rope out of his hide and run him off the ranch." He meant it.

The cattle did well. The side gramma and buffalo grass was abundant. The steers looked like they had been grain fed. In late August, Dad came up to take the steers and dry stuff to market. It was time to take the herd home anyway, so we started to round them up and get them ready to go. When we got them rounded up and tallied, we found we were twenty four head short. All three year olds from Olson's herd.

It was obvious that a full carload had been stolen. Dad and Johnnie went into town to report the theft. The Commission Co.'s in south St. Paul and Chicago were notified. When the cattle were put up for sale, the thieves were caught red-handed and sent to jail. That ended a cattle rustling business that had been going on for some time. I will not mention names as it might be detrimental to kids and grandkids of the gang. At any rate when we were in Faith one night, Johnnie met one of the gang and beat him up. Johnnie was not too good with his hands but he was pretty mad.

As we moved the cattle some of the older cows knew we were headed for home and took the lead, we made from twelve to fifteen miles a day. We stopped one night close to the Heitzle place. It was a compulsory stop, they had two good looking daughters. George Rundahl was pretty well taken with Mary and not too long after that they were married. The younger sister Anna was going with the neighbor boy at the time but she was nice enough to take time out to be nice to all of us.

In the morning, we moved the herd down the road and at lunch time was near enough to Oberstallers to ride over. Quite a necessary stop there was a family of nine, eight of them girls. Kate was the oldest one and was just ready to ride down to the dam to water her horse. Johnnie was sure his horse was thirsty and went along. When they came back, Johnnie was wringing wet and looking like a guilty sheep.

He said that Button, his horse, had pulled him in. We all knew that he had got smart with Kate and she had thrown him in. Kate was a fine girl, she worked at the State House in Pierre for many years. I got well acquainted with all the girls and when on their side of the river, took one or the other of them to dances.

When we were nearly to the river, Ed McQuirk rode over. He was a horse trader. He and Johnnie got to trading and Johnnie traded him the horse that I had to top off for him every time he rode him. He traded for a three year old stallion, a beautiful red roan. He was worse than the other. Not mean but just a hard horse to ride. He was too much for John. I got him cheap, and that is how I got Roanie for sister Julie. I rode him on home. I kept him in and rode him hard for a couple of weeks and then turned him over to Julie. She had a way with animals and in less than a week had him tame as a kitten. For her. She could walk out in the pasture and ride him home without even a bridle. He would try to throw any one else.

On the first Saturday we were home, a lot of the young people of the neighborhood had gathered at our place and it was decided that we would all go to Milesville to a dance. Cecil Wedeman was in the group. Chuck saw her sitting on the steps of the west porch and remarked he was going to get her for the evenings partner. I beat him to her and she settled for me. Probably her first mistake. She was just back from college and she looked better than ever. I was lucky that day and had no idea that the luck was to continue in later days.

When we tallied out the herd on the home place, we were one head long. They were all good grade herefords and hard to tell one from another. After a close look one looked like a stranger. I roped him and we clipped the brand. It was one of John Barthold's. He said to hold him till some cattle buyer came through. We got him sold and sent John the check.

We were home a couple of days when LaBreque came down and wanted me to take his beef to town. I took them in alone and had no trouble. George Michaels knew I was coming in with the bunch. He met me just north of town and helped me get them in the stock yards. LaBreque's cattle were always tame and easy to handle.

I stayed at the Michael ranch that night. George wanted me to help him get a two year old buffalo bull that had strayed from Scotty Philip's herd at Ft. Pierre. The bull was on the Ferguson ranch north of town. We rode out and located the bull. We stayed at the ranch that night and started after the bull the next morning.

We rode up on him and started him toward town. He ran right along and was no problem to drive. We got him to the north end of town, we both knew it would be practically impossible to drive him through town. We decided to rope him. George was to head and I was to heel because I never missed. George made a nice throw and got him just back of his jaws, I missed. The bull took a run at George and literally lifted his horse off the ground. By that time I had the heels I was to have had before. We hog-tied him and George went in after his brother Paul.

When George and Paul got back they each put a rope on his head and I had a rope on his hind leg just over his hock. This gave us complete control and we put him in the stock yards without too much trouble. Scotty was there and paid us off with no argument. I stayed at the ranch with George that night and early the next morning Scotty was there and wanted us to get the bull again. He had torn the gate off the stock yards and was long gone. I declined, so did George. I heard afterwards that the bull wintered near Ottumwa and in the spring Scotty came up and took him back to the ranch at Ft. Pierre.

This is as good a time as any to tell of Scotty's trained buffalo. He had three trained, two he could drive and one he could ride. He showed them at many fairs. I know that most of the time they were quite manageable, but there were times when they reverted to their natural state and then hell was to pay. One experience with buffalo handling was enough to last me a lifetime. By the way Scotty is gone but some of the family still have the largest privately owned buffalo herd in the country.

Sadie and Harry had been seeing a lot of each other and were seriously considering marriage. Harry had a place near the head of Indian Spring Draw, near a real good soft water spring. Here Harry started to build their house. I helped Harry as much as I could. One of the things that we did was to pipe water from the spring to the house. Harry was very handy and Grandpa Hoag was there with a lot of advice. Grandpa Hoag was badly crippled with rheumatism, he looked like a human question mark. If he was to talk to you out in the yard, he would sit on the end of his cane. By leaning way back he could look a tall man right in the eye.

Hartzel Olds, Dad and Leon had been haying and had a lot of hay cut and bunched ready to haul in and stack. We got busy and got it all hauled in and stack. We got busy and got it all hauled in and stacked before the first storm. We got a nasty little blizzard. I was at George Ferguson's. We had been working a bunch of horses when the storm struck. We were about two miles from the ranch. Snow came down in sheets and the wind was cold and strong. Both of us had slickers, I put mine on but George didn't. George was riding a colt that I had just taken some of the rough off. I asked George if he thought the colt would buck if he put his slicker on.

George said, "Artie, this colt bucks like the devil without giving him a flapping slicker for an excuse." We made it home in one piece but about froze. The storm was of short duration and then we had nice weather till Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, Sadie had gone back to Minnesota. Some time early in December she and Grandma Britton came back to South Dakota. Sadie and Harry was to be married on the twenty fourth of December. It was a merry festive time. I, Francis, Julie, Margaret and Babe went after a tree. We were all riding, Babe riding behind Julie. We had old Jim along with a pack saddle to bring the tree back. The girls selected and I rejected. The one they wanted was at least twenty feet high. We finally cut one down and when we got it home we still had to cut about a foot off to make it fit. We got it up and the trimming started. Mother, Francis and Sadie were the bosses and together we trimmed the tree and all the downstairs.

One of the reasons for the elaborate decorations was of course the wedding on Christmas Eve. By noon it had started to snow. By night time a real blizzard was getting in gear. The guests had started to come. Harry was worried that the minister would not be able to make it. The minister was a Reverend Hertz. He was an Indian minister. He was white. He had never married a white couple and was quite excited about the whole deal. He must have done a good job all right because Sadie and Harry lived happily together till Harry's death.

The Marietta High School girls sang at the wedding. I can't remember all the kids but I know Steno and Thelma Helgeson and Martha and Leona Edwards and my sisters were in on it. The storm was getting worse and some of the older people left right after the wedding. Most of the young people stayed. We danced most of the night. The rest of the night was spent with the popular games of that time. There was a lull in the storm's ferocity about sunup and Harry, Sadie and Grandma Britton left for their home as Harry had stock that had to be taken care of. Johnnie Olson, Howard Wedeman, Harold Ferguson and two of the Kaiser boys stayed. We still had all the girls so the party lasted till the storm was over.

1921 The New Year came in about the same time as usual and the winter was no better or worse than usual. Our time was occupied with more or less routine work. The cattle had to be fed and watered. Wood to be cut and the regular chores taken care of. Mother taught me to embroider and that and darning our socks and mending our clothes helped pass the time away.

We made our own entertainment, card parties, dances, a debating team. Francis and I was a part of that. We went from place to place to debate. We debated any or all comers and was not always the loser. Everyone enjoyed the debates. We put on plays. The cast consisted of any person that wanted to get into the act. I suppose some of the plays were pretty bad and the rest might have been worse but the audiences seemed to enjoy it or were polite and kind. Card games and card parties were very popular. We older kids learned to count on a cribbage board. Mother and dad were very good card players, nearly any kind of game. Dad knew he was good and would admit it. Mother, bless her sweet heart never said anything. She just won games and seldom made a mistake.

Spring came, everything seemed to know that it was a time for reproduction. The little hereford calves white faces looked like they had just been laundered. The Meadow Larks built their nests with the canopies over the top to keep out the weather. The larks' always lined their nests with the softest of grasses and some of their own feathers. The Bobolinks were in too big a hurry to really make a nice home. Both male and female did the incubating. Curlews are not even as particular but they leave it open to the sun. They know that the heat from the sun will give them some time off. They play around most of the daytime hours. Kildeers also just have a place to lay their eggs. The magpies are the real nest builders. Some of their nests would fill a wagon box. To make a complete report would be a book in itself, so maybe another time.

It is a shame that all children do not have the opportunity to study the wild things. Surely would be the finest religious training that a child could have. Observation of, and study of our wildlife to me proves the existence of a supreme power. So remarkable a plan to create a plan and maintain it could never be by chance. Even with the abuse of our environment by man, God has been able to keep most things in order.

This year, like most of the other years it was necessary to ride the creeks and water holes to be sure there was no cattle stuck in the mud. We had two horses that were real good on a rope. Pat, the horse Dad and Ebb left me with to get home when he was plum green, and Old Jim the horse that we used to break colts with. Most of the time with just a good pull the cattle could make it out of the mud. There were a few times we had to go home and get a team of work horses to get the job done. One of the jobs no one wanted to do but had to be done. Julie did a lot of riding and helped out a lot if she found one mired she came home and got help as we did not want to chance her getting hurt trying to get the critter out.

In early spring the coyotes began to be a problem. They began killing calves and would eat on a cow stuck in the mud without killing them first. I found one heifer stuck with probably ten pounds of meat eaten off her hind end. She was still alive, I pulled her out and cleaned her up. I doctored her up and covered the wound with a substance to protect her from the flies. She survived and in about a month had a nice healthy calf. One other nasty coyote incident, a newborn calf had been attacked. One ear was gone and a patch of hide as big as a big hand torn off his side. Apparently he had ran because his tail had been pulled out by the roots. He also lived. I took him and his little heifer mother to the ranch where we could take care of him. The girls name him the Holy Ghost. We knew this had to be the work of a bunch of pups.

We all carried rifles and I got a pack of hounds from Charlie Price. A big yellow stag hound and two little greyhound pups. Jack the staghound could kill the ordinary coyote by himself. The little greys could out run old Jack. The little female was the fastest. She would run right by the coyote which would turn him. By this time either Jack or the little grey would be there. The little female would do a lot of jumping in and out of the fight but never did touch a coyote. She left the fighting up to the males. We thought there was a cross breed litter of coyote pups. The first one we caught with the dogs was dark colored and nearly as large as a wolf. We finally got rid of the litter and the killing stopped. Earlier that year we had dug out one litter of pups. I took two of the babies home, they were as cute as any little pups. We tried to tame them but was unsuccessful. The hounds finally killed one and I destroyed the other.

All of the farm land had been put into feed crops which made it possible for me to find outside work, part of the time. I worked for the county on the roads. When I applied for work the boss asked me what I could do. I told him, about anything. He sent me to the shop to put a transmission in a five ton federal truck. It would not have been so bad but the transmission was torn down and scattered all over the floor. I looked at it for some and as I needed the job I had to do something, which I did. I hired a mechanic to put the things together and then I drove the truck over in front of the bosses office. I got the job. That was the start of a life time of some kind of work moving dirt.

Sister Francis was married this fall, 1922. She married a man none of the family liked. Mert Edgar. We all tried to talk her out of it. The more we talked the more determined she was to marry Mert. I learned then that the right thing might be wrong. If we had kept our mouths shut she might have made up her mind the right way. They lived together a little over a year. I knew he was not too good because mother could find no good in him. The only person I ever knew that mother couldn't find something good to say about. George Edgar was born to the short union. George spent most of his youth with the folks. Was more or less a blessing to mother.

Howard Wedeman came to work with me on the road job. We became good friends. We worked over in the Milesville area building a road to the Carlin Bridge. Dad was working on the road and bridge and dividing his time between two jobs. It was necessary for me to lay off now and then to take care of things at home. Leon was home then most of the time and would have things ready for me when I was there. Pat came with me several times and we got a lot of things done in a short time. Julie being home did not make it any harder to get Pat to come. At any rate we got all the winter feed up and worked on the road till we got the job done.

We got the fall work done and I was breaking a few horses and doing about anything to make a dollar. We had a lot of rye and quite a bit of corn that year, enough so that I decided to buy a few calves to go with the ones I had and feed them out. Finally wound up with fifty five head of very good calves. We had alfalfa hay which was a good feed to make the calves forget they had just been weaned. I ground rye and started to get them used to eating the stuff. Rye is very rich and the first thing I did was to feed them too much and stalled them. Took a long time to get them back on their feed again. After I started mixing corn with the rye I could crowd them without stalling them. They made a terrific growth. This was one of the most interesting jobs I ever did. I had them in the huge hay corral and this meant that I had to haul water for them. Quite a job.

It was an easy winter, colder than a well digger's lunch some of the time, but not a lot of snow. There was a lot of parties and dances going on all the time. We would get a bunch together and take in a dance several miles from home. Heitzels built a big new barn and we went to several dances there. That was across the river and meant we had to travel by wagon or horseback. Usually would take from two to three days. I always had stock to take care of and would have to get back sooner.

We had a lot of local parties too. One of the popular places was Harry and Sadie Hoag's. Many wonderful memories of the times we had at their place. Of course our place was always a good place to meet. Most everyone who came would make themselves right at home.

I really got acquainted with Cecil Wedeman that year. We were at a box supper one night at Milesville. I thought I was bidding on her basket but had the wrong one. We danced together several times that night and I took her home after the dance. After a short argument with the fellow who had bought her basket.

Norwegian whist was very popular and lots of all night card parties were held. Whist tournaments were very popular. We had some very good teams in our locality. Ray and Hazel O'Connell, Bob and Minnie Hanrahan, John and Sabra Wedeman and my folks were counted among the best. Most of the young people were accomplished players but usually had other important activities to take care of.

This year was slow and work was scarce. Pat Wedeman and I began looking around for something to do. I suppose that the wonderlust that hits so many people got the upper hand and shortly after Christmas we headed out to see what we could find.

Pat stopped in at our place one morning and wanted me to help him ride for some heifers that he could not find.

We got to talking and thinking about the disappearance of cattle. All of us had shortages and they had turned up in the week or two before Pat came over. Vaughns, Bennets, Olsons, and the Brittons had all lost track of stock. We had an idea where they might be. I am not going to mention names as it might be detrimental to people who were not implicated at that time.

Pat and I decided the place to ride was an area between Bridger and Deep Creeks. We split up and stared hunting for something of a suspicious nature. We rode several days with no success. About the fourth day as I remember it, Pat came looking for me. We had found a holding pen west of Bridger up a big draw. A lot of plum brush and deep wash out made an ideal place to hold and change brands.

Finding this holding pen seemed to point directed at a certain family. We decided to ride their pastures and see what we could come up with. We finally came on to a shed usually used for calving. In it we found one of my cows and ten of Dad's steers all with their brands worked. Pat was all for going right up to the ranch and confronting them with our findings. I talked him out of it and we went home and told Dad what we found.

Dad notified the sheriff and they came out. They told me they had been watching those people for some time. At any rate the sheriff, Pat and I went over. The man was arrested and we took our cattle home. Pat's were not in the bunch we found and I was short one registered Short Horn heifer. Pat never did find his nor did we ever locate my heifer.

We heard afterwards that we were at the north end of a ring that was operating from the Bridger on the Cheyenne to Hot Springs. To the best of my knowledge there was no more cattle rustling in that are at least not while I was in the country. I am reasonably sure that my leaving had nothing to do with the ranchers security.

We landed in Lead and went to work in the Homestake Mine. It was a pretty good job and the pay was good. I worked as a miner's helper and drew about six bucks an hour. The miner contracted the job and was paid by the ton. I don't remember the ratio I was paid on but could make up to thirty dollars on a short day.

I know that I did not mind the work but I hated the mine. Most of the time I worked on the 600 ft. level. There was the vertical shaft and we were also on a horizontal shaft. We always had fresh air from the outside. If it was cold and windy outside we were cold. There were days when we could wear a sheepskin and other days when we were too warm and wore our B.V.D.'s. I hated the day shift. Would just be good daylight when we went in and after sundown when we came out. I just had a hard time adjusting to not having the sunshine I was so used to. It was a good place to work in a lot of ways. They had nice recreation rooms, a swimming pool and a big gymnasium with very good instructors.

Pat and I stayed there till spring and took off for Casper, Wyoming. We landed in there and went to an employment office. Was not exactly sure how the employment office worked but we found out that the employment was in the office. They employed persons to catch the unwary strays that knew no better, and dropped in. We finally wised up and went looking for a job on our own.

I got a job the first day with Gilbert Brothers. They were building the dikes around the big oil tanks. The next day Pat got a job building the tanks. About the second week that Pat worked a man was killed very close to him. Pat didn't like that, and he did not like the work either so he quit and went to work on a ranch near Ten Sleep. I missed him but I stayed on.

I worked the rest of that summer and did a variety of jobs, most of which I had no training for. I first built canvas horse barns. Then came blacksmithing. The smith I was working with was a big man, not really a good smith, but a real nice guy. We sharpened the plow lays, or shears, and repaired any broken equipment. His name was Price and I finally found out he was brother to our neighbor Charlie Price. I learned a little about different jobs and a lot about getting along with people. I was just a kid and was picked on a lot. Had a few fights, lost most of them but did win a few. I ingratiated myself with the bosses, the head cook and the barn dog. They kinda took me under their wing and helped me a lot. Morris Gilbert, one of the bosses told me they had a seventy five man crew, one crew working, one crew leaving and one crew coming. The men were from all over the country. Most of them drifters who just wanted a few good meals and few dollars to take them on to new adventures.

I was probably the youngest man on the job. Nearly six feet tall but not very heavy. You had to fight or you would be run out of camp. A good thing you did not necessarily have to win. I never picked a fight, I had plenty without. Being just a kid I was fair game. One of the drifters seemed to take a lot of pleasure out of biting me. He was a big black Irishman. One day he went too far and I was about to take him on. It was after work and the whole camp was there to see the fight. Another Irishman stepped up and said "Let me have him kid." I did. Blackie would have pulverized me. The fight that ensued was as good a fight as I have ever seen and of course the good guys won. It was a lot easier for me to get along after that.

I learned a lot of things that year. Much of it still remains with me if I can remember it. I did learn a little about how to get along with people and that lots of times it was a lot better to listen than talk. I had made friends with the head cook. He had worked on many roundups and had made one drive from Texas. Helping him got me a chance for a lunch now and then if I was hungry, which I generally was. He was fast and good. To give you an example: One day he was having escalloped potatoes for dinner when I was helping. He told me to open some canned milk. I started with a can opener. Ed said, "God kid, you never will get through that way." He stood about twenty cans in a row on the work table, took a meat cleaver and hit each can. Probably opened all the cans in about fifteen seconds.

I stayed on the job till late fall. Had saved up some money and had a real bad case of homesickness. I had learned a lot of real good lessons. One of them was to not play poker with the bosses and the cook. They paid us every two weeks and then had a big poker game and won back the money to pay us with the next payday. When the clouds began to roll up from the northwest, the homesickness made me want to be home. I gave the bosses two weeks notice, which they said was the first they had ever had and packed up and headed for home.

I got home on the 18^th of October, John's birthday. Cecil Wedeman was there. I did not mind that. She looked pretty good to me. While I was gone she and my mother had become good friends. Cecil was teaching at the Price school on Ash Creek and our place was about half way between the school and her home. I know that she stayed that night and the next day I rode on home with her. The next day I went home and went out to run in a bunch of horses. I ran on to the remains of old Billie the first horse I ever owned. He had died with sleeping sickness, a most horrible way for an animal to have to die. Several more horses died with the sickness the same fall.

I think that the folks were as glad to see me as I them. I know little brother John said he was glad I was back because I as the only one who fought fair.

Dad had sold off most of the stock and all of the land to pay off the mortgages we had acquired over the years. In order to have enough he had sold the steers that I had also. At any rate the bill was paid. In looking back in later years it might have been better to have taken the bankruptcy route. That way we could have kept the homestead. Dad was too honorable to have taken that way.

All of our place had been planted to rye. The thrashing had been going on for several days and the crews were just getting to our place. Dad have been going with the crews and I took his place. All of the grain those days was either headed or bound with a binder. Mr. Petersen owned the thrashing machine. A 40-80 Avery pulled with a steamer. We stacked the straw near the dam north of the house. A good trick. Had enough hay in the hay yard to take care all the cattle we had left.

While thrashing at our place, Petersen's steamer broke down and Earnest Jacobs moved his steamer down to take over. The day we were supposed to start thrashing a snow storm took over an we were delayed a couple of days. Consequently, we ran out of meat and groceries. I took the little Ford racer and went to Milesville after groceries. While I was gone Earnest had fired up the old steamer and the men were just about ready to butcher a hog. With a hose from the steamer it was no problem to scald the hog. It did a perfect job. At any rate we had meat and the next day we started thrashing, we finished in a couple of days.

One day Malachi Foley came through with a bunch of cows. One of them was very old and poor. Malachi was sure she could not make it on home and gave her to me for twenty dollars. I throwed the feed to her and in a couple of months she had a big strong calf. The care and feed that she required paid off very well.

Cecil and I saw a lot of each other that winter. I met her coming home from teaching on weekends and she would stay at our place or I would ride on home with her. At Christmas time I was at the Wedeman home and they were all going to Bell's for dinner. I was riding Julie's Roany and had tied him to the team. I was going to ride in the sled with the rest of the bunch. Roany just raised hell and I had to ride him. He bucked like a rodeo horse before making up his mind to be decent. The funny thing about that horse was he would buck with any but Julie. She could go out in the pasture and ride him home bareback, she had a way with all animals.

We got a lot of snow from Christmas on and it was very cold. I had two hundred head of Foley's steers to winter. All I had to do was to keep the water holes open. They grazed and lived off the straw stacks. They wintered very well not fat but strong.

I broke a few head of horses that winter and trained a couple of them for roping. One of them was really good. They were Herman's horses, three quarter Morgan and really nice. The others were for Christianson's, some Norwegians who lived in the Hilland area. With what money I was able to save I bought some shorthorn heifers, back in the cow business again.

1923 Dad started working steady for Haakon County. He was foreman over both road and dirt work and bridges. I was glad he started at that work. He really never was cut out for the ranch work. He did the ranch work and did it well but he never really liked it. I learned from his experience that money is not everything. Even for a lot of money working at a job disagreeable to you should be counted a sin.

I got the job of maintaining the county road from the ranch to the Hanrahan School and from the ranch to John Olson's, about twenty miles two or three times a month and brought me in about one hundred and ninety dollars a month. Not enough to keep the wolf from the door but enough to dull his teeth.

Cecil and I continued to get together whenever possible. There is no question that she could have done better. She could have had the pick of any man in the country married or otherwise. Perhaps I was on the job more. Anyway, I won out and it was decided that we would be married on the eleventh day of June. We were at my folks and were to go to Philip the next day. It had rained for two days and was still raining. Dad had a Model "T" touring car with a winter top. He was to take us to town. I would have been pretty miserable in or on my car. Mine was a Model "T" racer and a trifle open.

Knowing what the gumbo road condition would be I suggested that I put on something besides a suit. Dad said, "Damn it kid, this is your wedding day, dress up and look decent." I did. We hadn't gone five miles when we had to dig the gumbo out of the wheels. Dad did the first one and I stayed decent. We had to do this several times on the way to town and by the time we got there I was a mess. It was afternoon and I had to get the license. Dad with his love of a joke had called the County Clerk and told them not to issue me a license as I was under age. I just about gave up trying to find him when he showed up. I was fit to be tied and not by a minister.

At any rate we finally got everything done and the Reverend Pontius Pilot performed the services with Dad, George Kennedy and the Mrs. Pilot as witnesses. He must have done a good job. As I write this fifty eight years later, we are still married. I am still convinced that it was the best deal I ever made.

After the wedding we loaded up in Dad's old Ford and headed for Rapid City. Made good time for those days and got in Rapid about dark. We got a room in the old Harney which was the deluxe of deluxes at that time. When we came down to eat I ordered sirloin steaks. When the waitress brought the steaks which were about two and a half pounds, each, she said, "I believe that the steak is as big as the little girl." Cecil started to cry, I think that she had just realized what she had let herself in for. As I look back I realize that all we had was each other and a lot of confidence.

We stayed in Rapid a couple of days and drove around the Hills a little. We stayed a couple of days and then we had to go home as I had to go to work. I was working on the road at this time. We knew if we were seen in Philip we would be shivareed. This was the popular way at that time to welcome home newly wed couples. We decided to go to Ottumwa. Worked out all right. It was a very few miles from where I was working and no one suspected we would be there. Mother had told us she and Dad would have a dance for us, which would eliminate the shivaree.

The next day we went home and got ready for the dance, at least helped some. Mother had prepared enough food for the whole crowd, most of the women who came had the same idea and the old kitchen table groaned with the weight. About everyone was there. We did not have an orchestra as such but we had a lot of musicians. The country was full of them. Sister Margaret was fifteen and a good piano player. Clarence Vaughn played a sax, Albert Haynes, Chuck Bennett and Johnnie Olson played the violin. I had a guitar, a lot of people could chord on that and Harold Ferguson had a set of drums. Might not have been music to some critics, but we thought it was pretty good. At any rate a good time was had by all.

After our marriage, Cecil and I stayed at the home place. It was decided that the next year we would farm Cecil's folk's place. Consequently we started moving some of the stock and machinery that I had in preparation for framing the next year. We had to make repairs on the bunkhouse where we were to live. When we got it done it was livable if not one of the better homes in the country. I built a chicken house in the bank of a draw south of the house. It was a good place for the hens and they started right in making at least a part of our living expenses.

One day as I returned from the first leg of the maintenance job I turned the corner into the yard and here was Cecil headed for the bank with a huge gob of dough stuck on her hands. She was crying, the dough would not raise and she was about to dispose of it. I rescued her and the dough. I convinced her that the yeast had not had time to work. We put the mess back in the house and in an hour it showed signs of life. She had not had a lot of experience at cooking at that time. The bread came out real good and I might add that Cecil came to be a real good cook and a wonderful bread baker.

That fall we moved to the Wedeman place in time for me to help Dad Wedeman get in enough wood to last all of us all winter. Dad had a wonderful barn built partly in the bank and it was really warm. Never froze in the lower half where the stock was kept. Cecil and I acquired a couple more milk cows to add to the few I already had so we had enough cream and eggs to almost pay our way.

We had some real good work horses on the ranch and I kept a four up. They were a team of matched sorrels and a pair of roans. This was not enough to work Dad's place and we decided to break out some mares he had. They were not colts they ran from six to nine years old. I got them in and began working with them. Two of them were quite tractible and were easy to handle. The other two were just plain ornery. A grey mare would always make a break for freedom and make a run on us every time we took her out of the barn. I was sure someday she would hurt Dad and I made up my mind I would break her of that. I took one of the hay ropes out of the hay mow and tied it solidly to the barn, fastened it to her lead rope and led her towards the door. As soon as she saw the door she made a run for it. When she came to the end of the rope she went head over heels and she was hanging over an embankment by her neck. The rope was choking her. I let her hang as long as I dared and cut her loose. She never made a run on us again.

We worked them all we could that winter and when spring came they could be worked at the regular farm work. We did have some trouble with them. I put them on the road drag. A steady pull and they soon got the idea. When winter came in twenty three it brought the regular amount of work and also the time for card parties and dances. To Cecil and I things went pretty well. We had no worries and could see no reason for things to change. At any rate we had a lot of fun.

We had Christmas at the Wedeman home. I had never seen such an assortment of food. All my life I had the best of food and plenty of it. This Christmas dinner was something else. Probably five kinds of cakes, more pies than that. Roast turkey and goose salads, pickles and jellies to go on the hot buns. About everything anyone could think of. At that time in my life I could eat just about anything and about all of it. There was a big bunch of us. Jim and Velva Bell and their three lovely daughters, Ray and Hazel O'Connell and Dale and my folks. Those days are surely over. I left Johnnie Bell out, he was there.

The big deal after Christmas dinner was the card games. Dad Wedeman and my dad started playing together and took on all comers. Their losses were certainly small. They were both excellent players and would admit it if pressed. Pat and I took the kids sledding. The hills there were steep enough to satisfy the most adventuresome. The days before Christmas till after New Years was one big party after another. If ever there was good old days these were some of them.

After the New Year Pat and I went down to Bell's to help Jim butcher. He had some heavy weight hogs. We got them butchered and hung up to cool. After supper Jim said they would have cooled enough. The carcasses were hanging high enough to keep clean. Each would weigh at least three hundred pounds. We were to split them down the middle and carry them to the kitchen for processing. I split one of them and Pat slid under one of the halves. Without hesitation Jim slid under the other half. The half probably outweighed Jim by fifty pounds. I mentioned to Jim that it might be too heavy for him. He said, "Cut her loose." I did and it took Jim to the ground. This is a pretty good description of Jim. He only weighed one hundred and twenty five pounds but he felt big as a horse. Jim and Dad were both real good with meat. Dad was very good with head cheese and pickled meats and Jim was a wonderful meat smoker. Between the two of them they were quite a team.

Cecil and I still had our Ford, Model "T" of course. Just the running gear really. It did have a small seat and a windshield. I had built a small box on the back. It had been fitted out with a fancy motor, Atwater Kent ignition, double fly wheel and a counter balanced crank shaft. It could run like a scared coyote. It was not the most comfortable car in the world to ride though. The old Ford had one redeeming feature. It had a Bearcat heater (trade name). This was a manifold heater, the air was forced through it by fan through the wooden dashboard. If put out more heat than you could use, up to the knees.

We had considerable snow by the last of January and we needed to get to town for some groceries. Cecil and I planned on going. Mother Wedeman said she would like to go along. We agreed. Neither Mother Wedeman or Cecil was very wide in the beam. The seat on the racer was about forty inches wide. I got them in or on and we started. The snow had thawed some and the roads were rutted badly. We got a long fine till we came to a long hill north of Elbon. It was beginning to thaw by this time and I was hurrying along to be sure to make the hill. The front wheels literally jumped about two feet to the left to another rut. Grandma was thrown out or off. She never did let up on me for my method of getting rid of my mother-in-law. We were lucky, she was not hurt. We had the eggs and cream in the box on the back and the eggs were not broken and the cream was not churned.

Spring came early and in March I was ready to start discing for wheat. I had my horses in and ready to go. Mother Wedeman came out and asked me not to start as it was Friday. I remember being put out some. I believe that was the only superstition she had. She probably was right. We had enough trouble starting on the right day. Did not take too long to get the wheat in. I had plenty of horses and changed every noon. Dad usually had them in the barn when it was time to change. I had scraped up about forty bushels of wheat grass seed off the old haymow floor and it was good horse feed. They had a lot of go.

We worked like the devil weekdays and usually took time out on Sundays. One of these days we were all at Bell's for dinner. Cecil decided to take the girls somewhere with the little racers. One thing about the little car, I had not cautioned her about. The old Model "T" when turned too far to the right would lock in that position. The upshot of this was: The old car was parked right in front of Jim's porch. Cecil loaded the girls in or on, whichever was possible. She started out, turned hard to the right, made a complete circle ran over a cream can and continued on under the porch. When she got stopped there was one support post left under the porch. Luckily no one was hurt and the girls went giggling on their merry way.

We spent a lot of Sundays with bucking contests. People came from quite a distance to watch. We always had a bunch of horses that were known buckers. And besides we could always run in a bunch of green colts. Some of them became famous buckers. They had good reason to be good. They all had a lot of practice throwing us off. To name a few, Two Bar, Dardenella, the Old Farmer and the Red Rooster. All of these bucked at Belle Fourche and became quite famous. I rode them all and the only one that could throw me consistently was the Old Farmer. In addition to throwing me at our bucking contests, I drew him once at Belle Fourche with the same results. At one time I had some good photographs of some of the contests, I believe that Clara Welfl got off with them, bless her little bohunk heart.

We really had a pretty good year, I can't remember the results dollarwise. Money was not so important in those days. I know the wheat made better than twenty five bushels per acre. Not too bad for spring wheat and the way we farmed. We had not yet learned the advantage or disadvantage of summer fallowing.

Dad was working for the state at that time. He was running a crew at Wall. After the crops were in that fall I went up to work for him. Cecil came up later. We were working on the Wall hill. Heavy cuts and a long haul. The machinery companies were just beginning to experiment with self loading wheel scrapers. A company in Rapid City was building a scraper called the Adego. One good team could haul a yard of dirt to the fill after being loaded with the help of a four horse booster team. The manufacturers kept a crew on the job to repair or make changes on the machines. So you see our crew was the testing personnel for the scraper builders. These little scrapers were the grandmothers of the Behemoths that are so numerous today.

After we moved to the Bull Creek hill east of Wasta, Cecil came up to be with me. We slept in a tent and ate with Mother and Dad. I started working a blade on sixty feet of cable behind an old six cylinder Holt tractor. It was a massive machine, also the forerunner of the modern machines. I was put to backsloping the cuts. The blade had to be balanced on the steep slopes by the angle of the blade and the amount of dirt moved. A dangerous work. Most of the men who tried it came tumbling down, tipping their blade over. I was lucky, or good and never had a mishap. Consequently I got all the backsloping to do. We finished the Bull Creek road and moved to west of Wasta.

To get to the west of Wasta we had to cross the Cheyenne River. The bridge was not strong enough to carry the big tractors so we were forced to ford the river. The little ten ton Holt was small enough to cross the bridge so all the blades and other machinery was moved over the bridge. Clarence Moss was the skinner of the ten ton. It was time to get the big tractors across. I was in the lead and my tractor made it in fine shape. So did the second. Carl Miler was on the third and the track on the upstream side came off in the middle of the river. About two feet of water. Dad had me back my machine out to the upstream side of the crippled cat to make a base for a diversion dam. We floated three by twelve planks twenty feet long out and made a diversion dam. We were able to get the track on and both the tractors moved out to dry ground and we were in business again.

I mentioned that we slept in a tent. We had the walls banked up with dirt. The entrance flap would close tightly. We had a Coleman oil heater, an upright. It did a marvelous job of heating the small space. It did need watching though. One morning I got up and lit the fire and went to the folks for breakfast. Had only been there a few minutes when I heard Cecil screaming. I looked out and Cecil had her head sticking out the flap, she was a black as any Negro could be and twice as mad, the flame had run up and it was putting out soot in great quantities. The soot hung in strings from the ridge pole as big as lead pencils. The roof and walls had a heavy coating. Most of our clothes were in the trunk. We thought they would be alright. Wrong guess. The soot had penetrated the trunk and everything in the top tray had to be cleaned. I know one thing for sure. Tenting came to a stop. It was nearly Christmas and Cecil and I went home to the farm.

All the tractors had to be overhauled that winter and I was lucky enough to be kept on to help with the work. Being raised on a farm and ranch my experience as a mechanic was very small. I supposed I learned some. The machines were very simply made and very uncomplicated. We did have a couple of boys with some experience. One was Clarence Moss.

He was a happy guy. He was a wonderful singer. He could not carry a tune but he sang Barney Google loudly and most of the day. We may not have enjoyed the singing but we got it anyway.

We made a lot of friends while at Wall. One couple were the Roman's. Chuck and Gladyce. We took a trip to the Hills one weekend. We got to Deadwood and needed a place to spend the night. Charlie went to find a place and the first one he went into was the residence of the ladies of the night. He did not get a room but he did get a couple of propositions and a lot of kidding. I don't remember just when I went home to wait for the spring work to open but I do remember I spent a lot of time on the farm. I know that Dad Wedeman and I cut and hauled a lot of timber out of the breaks for wood.

A blight had hit the ash trees. We cleared out the diseased trees, just leaving the healthy ones. Dad was a little man about one hundred and twenty five pounds. Instead of muscle he used smarts. He knew how to roll a big log on the wagon using the team. I learned a lot of things working with him besides swear words. Many of the tricks he taught me came in handy in later years. One day we were walking along the creek and Dad stumbled and fell flat. He got up and said, "Kid, I am a lot quicker now than I was when I was younger. When I was young if I stumbled I might stumble a rod or two before falling. Now when I stumble I fall right now."

As soon as the frost was out in the spring of nineteen twenty five we moved back to Wall. Dad left me and a skeleton crew there to finish up the job. He had started the job south of Kadoka. The folks kept their house in Wall. Mother, Margaret, Babe, and John were there. Mike was born in June. I believe Mother had Francis' little Georgie. Francis and Julie were at Nurse's school at Rapid.

I finished the backsloping and put in a culvert or two and supervised the back filling. I also did what maintenance was necessary. I had a little cat tractor, it was powered with a Cadillac engine, a straight eight, one of the better engines that I ever worked with. The drive between the engine was two layers of rubber belting. We had about twenty miles each trip and on many of them the joint had to be replaced.

I stayed on at Wall till early summer and by that time most of the equipment had been moved to the job south of Kadoka. I then went to that job. The state built what was called cook shacks for the married men. They were eight by sixteen feet, eight feet wide so they could be shipped on railroad cars. They were built on heavy steel frames with steel wheels. Cecil's and my first camp was at the crest of the hill on the south side of the Quiver Basin. We were camped in the pines close to the road. We were quite comfortable and spent a happy year moving along with the job.

The road was completed from Kadoka to our camp and we started pushing it on farther to the south. I worked some with the engineers and did blade work whenever not helping them. By this time I had run a blade enough to know pretty well how to handle it. It came easy for me. I had a new Russel blade made by a company which became Caterpillar very soon after that time. The Russel was a heavy machine and easy to steer, which was a good thing as we were working on sixty feet of cable. Due to the fact that I had the heavy grader, I was the one who made the first round. The layout stakes were a hundred feet apart and I learned to make a very straight cut.

Ray Gelino was right behind me, with True Craft just behind him. When we finished a round, Dad and Clarence Moss would start ahead of us with a machine called a planner. It had two blades forming a "V."

It was surprising how much we could do in a day as the big old cats could only make about a mile and a half under a full load which we gave them.

The culverts were put in after the blade work was done. Cub Spaw was the truck driver and mechanic. Moss also helped with machinery maintenance. We were a good crew to get along with, I can't think of anyone ever having any trouble.

The culverts and fills were done with fresnos and horses. Charlie Romans was one to the men that had teams on the job. Charlie and Gladyce had a cook shack similar to ours. We enjoyed having them on the job. We spent a lot of happy hours with them. I don't remember exactly when Cecil came out. I know she was in Wall when mother brought Mike along. That was on June second, nineteen twenty five. You see that makes me twenty three years older than Mike. Funny thing, I was twenty five times old than he then and now he is two thirds as old as I.

We traded the old "T" races for anew runabout, black - you could get any color of Ford that you wished as long as it was black. I remember it cost us trade and all five hundred and thirty five dollars. And it was something special. It had balloon tires. Cecil got to be a very good driver. She and Mother or one of the girls would take the little car and go into town over the partly constructed roads for groceries or just to be going. I don't believe that she ever got stuck.

We kept moving along and wound up the camping just east of Eagle Nest Butte. The road climbed up and out of the valley over and round a Butte rock hill. We used up several tons of dynamite to loosen the rock. I did most of the blasting. Dad had to instruct me in the beginning, I took to the job easily and I got along pretty good. We had Indian men on the job and a couple of the younger ones assisted me with the drilling. Everything was done by hand those days and it was slow hard work.

One of the Indian boys who helped me was scared to death of the dynamite. I thought that I could prove to him that if it was handled properly it was quite safe. We were using sixty pound percussion caps to detonate the powder. I decided to set up a real light shot close to him with the thought in mind that he would realize that it would not hurt him. One day he was sitting on an empty dynamite box drilling. I lit a light cap on a short fuse and slipped it under his seat. When it went off it shattered the box and what little confidence the boy had in me and the dynamite. There was a deep canyon just north of where we were working. He took off and ran all the way across the draw. I had a hell of a time convincing him that the blast was accidental and certainly not dangerous. I image the part of his anatomy closest to the box was a little tender all right.

We fought two real bad prairie fires that year. All of the state road crews were required to fight fires. We were paid overtime when it was after working hours. We fought one bad one on Eagle Nest Butte. It started about sundown at the northwest point of the butte. The hill was very steep and rough and not passable for the type of cars we had in those days. We fought that fire all night. The wind came up in the night and was no help. The farmers and ranchers came and helped, the fire finally burned itself out on the downhill side.

The most spectacular fire started about half way from Quiver Basin to the place that eventually became Long Valley. We had the road completed north of the camp. One of the dry Dakota rains came up. A lot of lightning and wind. The lightning struck west of the road and the wind drove the fire towards the bare road. As the road was fifty six feet wide we were sure it could stop the fire. No good.

A paste board box on the west side caught fire and blowed across the road. That country was just beginning to get plowed up and planted to crops. The first crop at that time was flax. The fire jumped into a field of flax nearly ready to harvest. Flax is a very oily plant and the fire ran through the filed like a bull with a cob under his tail. Dad sent me to a ranch right in the part of the fire. We thought they might need help. By the time I got there the fire was there. They had seen the fire coming and had backfired. The back fires and the green foliage of the creek stopped the fire. This was on Pass Creek. I saw a lot of fires before and after that but I never saw one travel so fast.

All in all it was a rather pleasant summer. Mother Britton and Cecil grew to be the best of friends. The whole crew seemed like a big family. The days were long. We started early in the morning and that gave us the long twilight hours to enjoy in one way or any other. One evening Mother and I were walking and saw a mother badger exercising her babies. They were playing just like a bunch of little flat puppies. Mother got much enjoyment from the wild creatures. She never changed.

Georgie Edgar was staying with Mother Britton. He visited around with all of us and there were several families. One day when Cecil was gone visiting he came to our shack. He was a busy little guy and found the eggs. He decided to stand them in a row on the edge of the table. He was smart enough to flatten them a little on one end. They leaked some but stood in a nice row. Cecil was not exactly pleased. He was about three and a cute little guy. One day he was with me and I was up on the butte. Instead of coming down the road, I cut across. I hit a small wash and Georgie got a nasty cut on his little read head. I was in the dog house for sure.

Cecil was a meticulous housekeeper. One Sunday we were all going on a picnic. Nearly the whole camp. They were all ready and waiting on Cecil and I. Cub Spaw came over to see what the hold up was. Cecil was just finishing up her household chores. Cub went back to the bunch and told them it would be a few more minutes as Cecil had to wash the table legs before she could go. We went over to Pass Creek and had our picnic. While there we seined the creek and caught enough trout and channel cats to feed the bunch for supper.

We moved camp one more time to a farm just north of where long Valley was to be built. We were there about a month and the state decided to move the machinery to another job. Dad and Mother moved into Kadoka so the kids could go to school. Charlie, Gladyce, Cecil and I were all the ones left in camp with a few Indian teamsters. Charlie's cook shack belonged to the state and was moved with the machinery. Gladyce and Charlie moved in with Cecil and I. We had plenty of room. No more though. You know those cook shacks were ten by sixteen. We had to cut the legs off the kids bed to make room. That way we could slide theirs under ours in the day time. We got along fine and had a lot of fun. We played a lot of five hundred. And some poker. One night Charlie and I and Billie Munroe, one of our Indians, were playing poker and Charlie was really winning. He finally got Billie's team. Four head of really good horses. We did not want Billie's horses. Charlie said, "Billie, I will bet the four horses against your wife." Billie's hard luck held. He lost his wife. He left. We were laughing about Billie's run of hard luck when there came a rap on the door. It was Billie with his wife, Billie said, "Here is your woman." Charlie had a hell of a time convincing him that he didn't want either the woman or the horses.

The Romans' and Cecil and I stayed till early December and then we quit for the winter. Charlie and Gladyce went back to Wall and we went back to the farm. Sometime after Christmas I went back to Kadoka to get the stuff we had left in the cook shack. While repacking and loading the dishes and whatever was left I somehow broke the neck off a vanilla bottle. I carelessly did not pick up the pieces and throw them out. To make a long story longer I knelt down on the vanilla bottle cap and it slide under my knee cap. Knew it was a bad cut and had the local doctor come and dress the wound. He was anything but sanitary. He filled wash pan without even rinsing it and washed the cut. He then covered the wound with a powder, iodoforam, which I apparently was allergic to. I picked up a really bad infection.

By the time I got back to Philip my leg was swelled to twice its regular size and I was in great pain. We called Dr. Ramsey and he came and redressed if after cussing a lot about the way the Kadoka doctor had taken care of the wound. Cecil and I went to the farm. Very few days went and the infection had worsened. We were getting a bad storm besides. The folks and Cecil decided we would have to go to town where we could get a doctor's care. Dad Wedeman put four horses on ahead of his car and we went to the grade and then we could run right along. We moved in to Frank Lane's home. He was Cecil's uncle.

Dr. Ramsey looked at the leg and said an amputation at the knee was necessary if I was to live. I refused to have it off and Doc was really mad at me. He told me afterward he was glad I was stubborn, as I lived and the leg was not too bad. Did bother a long time though. Along with the bad leg I contracted what the Doctor called quinsey, a very sore throat infection. Cecil saved the leg with Epson salts packs. An hour on and an hour off. I know I was the meanest patient there ever was. I lost weight all winter. I healed though and finally was able to walk on crutches. When I was able to walk to town I was under one hundred and forty pounds down from one seventy five.

I was still walking on crutches when Dad Britton and I went to Gordon, Nebraska, to contact Joe Leedsom who was interested in hiring both of us. After meeting with the Sheridan County Commissioners and the State Highway Engineers, we came to an agreement. Dad was to work as Highway Supt. For both the county and state and I was to be employed as a blade man for both outfits.

In the spring of nineteen twenty six Cecil and I moved to Gordon, so we said goodbye to South Dakota. We had lived happily there for many years so our farewells were not without some misgivings. Many years later it still seems like home in many ways. We always enjoy a visit there.

I hope your reading of this, if you could bring yourself to finish, was not too boring. I have proved one thing. Not everyone can write. I tried to bring to you a picture of life as it was. The story was to be a family and friends story. I found myself writing too much of me and not enough of what it was supposed to be, family and friends. Oh well.